Latest Ebok platform offshore Nigeria nears commissioning

May 1, 2015
Afren is looking to sustain its wide-ranging development and exploration programs offshore Africa, despite the company’s current financial difficulties.

Offshore staff

LONDONAfren is looking to sustain its wide-ranging development and exploration programs offshore Africa, despite the company’s current financial difficulties.

Offshore Nigeria, the company and its partners plan further development of the Ebok field, finalizing the Central Fault Block (CFB) extension platform and West Fault Block upgrades and debottlenecking.

The CFB extension wellhead jacket was installed in late 2014, followed by installation this March of the bridge and decks. Hook-up and commissioning of the facilities should follow by mid-summer.

The 12-slot platform is designed to support initially 10 production and five injector wells, along with power generation, with space for future installation of an additional gas compressor.

At the Okwok field, Afren and partners Oriental and Addax Petroleum have completed and flow tested the Okwok 13 development well which was drilled and completed from the Okwok jacket, which was installed late last year.

The well was completed in the LD-1B Lower reservoir in more than 1,500 ft (457 m) of horizontal section and flow tested 5,400 b/d of 24.5° API oil on a 36/64-in. choke, with a producing gas-oil ratio of 355 cf/bbl and a flowing wellhead pressure of 1,248 psi.

It has since been suspended in readiness for the planned installation of a mobile offshore production unit and the Okwok crude oil sales export pipeline.

However, the lower oil price has led the partner to review an optimal development plan for Okwo going forward.

After completion of an ocean bottom cable 3D seismic survey over the entire Ebok/Okwok/OML 115 area, Afren and Oriental, spudded the Ameena East prospect last November using the jackupShelf Adriatic 1.

Although the secondary Qua Iboe reservoirs were found to be water-bearing in the shallow portion of the hole, light hydrocarbons were encountered in a net interval of 38 ft (12 m) with an average porosity of 16%, as indicated by wireline logs.

The well has been temporarily abandoned and made available for potential re-entry at a later date.

In offshore block OML 113, the 1996 Aje oil and gas field discovery is thought to be one of the largest oil fields in Nigeria outside the Niger Delta basin. Three of the four wells to date (Aje-1, Aje-2, and Aje-4) have encountered oil and gas in various intervals across the Turonian, Cenomanian and Albian sands, and Aje-1 and Aje-2 have both tested at commercial rates.

The partners estimate resources at potentially 179 MMboe, principally related to theAje field, with an additional 205 MMboe of mean prospective resources on the block.

In January 2014, they submitted a development plan for Aje to the Nigerian DPR, which was approved two months later. This is focused mainly on the Cenomanian oil reservoir.

Last October, they sanctioned a first-phase of development involving two subsea production wells tied back to a leased FPSO, probably a recompletion of Aje-4 and a new well drilled close to the Aje-2 subsurface location. First oil could flow in late 2015 with mid-case reserves of 32.4 MMbbl.

05/01/2015