Offshore staff
UXBRIDGE, U.K. — Wildcat Petroleum (WCAT) has entered a reconnaissance permit agreement with the Petroleum Directorate of Sierra Leone (PDSL) for 20 offshore petroleum blocks, spanning a total area of 24,000 sq km.
WCAT has a nonexclusive right to perform reconnaissance operations over a period of six months. It plans a desktop study, using geophysical and geological data already acquired, to identify blocks prospective for commercial oil finds.
The company would then request further negotiations with the Directorate for a Petroleum Exploration and Production License.
Within the acreage are two uncommercial oil discoveries, Mercury and Jupiter, drilled by Anadarko (now Oxy) and partners Tullow and Repsol. Other wells off Sierra Leone drilled by Mobil, Amoco and Lukoil had hydrocarbon shows.
Results to date suggest a working petroleum system offshore, but all the blocks were dropped due to a combination of disappointment and falling oil prices. Subsequently, as WCAT points out, drilling in the deepwater Guyana-Suriname Basin has proven billions of barrels of oil resources in Cretaceous fans, and these can be linked tectonically and litho-stratigraphically with the conjugate Sierra Leone Basin.
WCAT also has noted that Shell and TotalEnergies’ oil discoveries off Namibia earlier this year were both in Cretaceous deepwater fans.
As for the potential of the Cretaceous deepwater plays off Sierra Leone, African Petroleum estimated, based on 3D seismic data over its (now relinquished) deepwater blocks, prospective resources of ~2.5 Bbbl in numerous large stacked fans.
“We would hope to recognize similar fans along the same 'foot of slope/basin floor fan’ trend in our study area,” WCAT said.
06.08.2022
