Offshore staff
SAN DONATO MILANESE, Italy — Eni has upgraded its estimate for the deepwater Baleine oil and gas field offshore Côte d’Ivoire, following a second successful exploration well on the structure.
The Saipem 12000 drilled the Baleine East 1X well, the first in Block CI-802, in 1,150 m of water and 5 km east of the Baleine 1X discovery well. Final measured depth was 3,165 m.
Results have boosted in-place volumes at Baleine by about 25% to 2.5 Bbbl of oil and 3.3 Tcf of associated gas.
Drilling followed an extensive data acquisition campaign, confirming the presence of a continuous circa 48-m oil column in reservoir rocks with good properties.
From the vertical borehole, a horizontal drain, 850 m long, was drilled into the reservoir for the production test; this confirmed a potential rate of at least 12,000 bbl/d of oil and 14 MMcf/d from Baleine East 1X.
Eni and partner Petroci plan to drill a third well to speed up development, aiming for early-phase startup in the first half of 2023, about 18 months after the original discovery was made. This would be in line with Eni's phased development model and fast-track approach.
Results and production performance from the latest well should also help optimize further full-field development phases.
In addition to Baleine’s CI-101 and CI-802 blocks, Eni has shares of five other blocks in the Ivorian deepwater: CI-205, CI-501, CI-504, CI-401 and CI-801, all with Petroci Holding.
07.29.2022
