Offshore staff
HAMBURG, Germany and LONDON – Two European companies have detailed their block awards under Mexico’s shallow water bid round 3.1, announced yesterday.
Deutsche Erdoel Mexico, an affiliate of German E&P company DEA, secured blocks 16 and 17 in partnership withPEMEX and CEPSA and block 30 with Sapura Energy and Premier Oil, all as operator.
“The bid round results are a great success, giving us access to highly prolific basins,” said Juan Manuel Delgado, president of Deutsche Erdoel Mexico. “Both, the Tampico-Misantla and the Sureste basin offer significant undiscovered resource potential.”
Blocks 16 and 17 are close to block 2, where DEA already has exploration activities as a partner to PEMEX.
Block 30, in the shallow-water Sureste basin, is southwest of the Talos-operatedZama discovery (where Premier is also a partner), and north of the Eni-operated Amoca oil field.
Premier has identified numerous leads and prospects on the block, which it claimed was the most highly contested of the round, in Tertiary clastic plays.
Some of the prospects exhibit direct hydrocarbon indicators on existing 3D seismic, which the company claimed significantly de-risked the potential of the block. These anomalies are similar to those seen at Zama and Amoca, it added.
The partners aim to acquire further 3D seismic in 2019 ahead of firming up drilling locations for 2020.
Premier also gained 100% operated interests in blocks 11 and 13 in the Burgos basin, a prospective region directly inboard of the prolific deepwater Perdido fold belt.
Here the company has mapped several structural closures on existing 3D seismic in analogous plays to those proven in the onshore Burgos basin and offshore in the US Gulf of Mexico.
The main exploration targets are in Pliocene to Miocene intervals. Regional mapping and basin maturity modeling indicates access to oil charge.
The initial work program includes reprocessing existing 3D seismic to help define the trapping geometries in the extensional play setting and to de-risk the oil play.
CEO Tony Durrant said: “The awards significantly enhance our existing acreage position in Mexico and have the potential to deliver significant organic growth for our business in the longer term.”
03/28/2018
