AFRICA

Bowleven hits hydrocarbons onshore Cameroon
Bowleven Oil & Gas’ Zingana exploration well has encountered hydrocarbons in the Paleocene-aged (Tertiary) reservoir onshore Cameroon, the company said. The well is the first in the company’s two-well exploration program in the Bomono permit area. The well, which was drilled to a total depth of 1,720 m (5,643 ft), is being suspended as planned to enable future reentry. The rig will be moved to the Moambe well location, more than 2 km (1 mile) east of Zingana. Moambe is a previously undrilled Paleocene-aged (Tertiary) robust three-way dip closed fault block. Bowleven said it intends to drill, log and evaluate
both wells prior to determining any testing plan.

Eni discovers gas in the Nile Delta
Eni discovered gas in the Nooros exploration prospect, located in the Abu Madi West license in the Nile Delta 120 km (74 miles) northeast of Alexandria, Egypt, the company said. Preliminary estimates of the discovery account for a potential of 15 Bcm (530 Bcf) of gas in place with upside, plus associated condensates. The Nidoco NW2 Dir NFW well reached a total depth of 3,600 m (11,811 ft) and encountered a 60-m-thick (197-ft-thick) gas-bearing sandstone interval of Messianian age with excellent petrophysical properties similar to other gas layers in the overlying Pliocene section. The new discovery will be put into production in two months’ time through a tie-in to the existing Abu Madi gas treatment plant, located 25 km (15 miles) southeast, the company said in late July.

ASIA

Production kicks off at CNOOC’s Luda 10-1 project
The Luda 10-1 comprehensive adjustment project has commenced production, field operator CNOOC Ltd. said in a release. The Luda 10-1 independent oil field is located in Liaodong Bay of Bohai with an average water depth of about 30 m (98 ft). In addition to fully using the existing facilities of Luda 10-1, this adjustment project also has built one wellhead platform. There are 13 wells producing about 3,300 bbl/d of crude oil. The project is expected to reach its designed peak production of about 6,000 bbl/d of crude oil in 2016.

AUSTRALIA

Woodside awards FEED contract to Wood Group
Wood Group has secured a new 12-month contract valued at $6 million to carry out FEED work for the Woodside-operated proposed Browse floating LNG development offshore Western Australia, according to a news release. Wood Group Kenny will perform all design engineering for the insulated production flowline system required for the asset’s offshore gas-condensate fields—Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa—located 300 km (186 miles) from the Kimberly coast. The focus of the Browse subsea flowline FEED work is to develop the engineering and design of the rigid flowline system to assist the Browse joint-venture participants in making a final investment decision, which Woodside is targeting in second-half 2016.

EUROPE

Statoil, Total make gas, condensate discovery in North Sea
Operator Statoil and its PL146/PL333 partner Total E&P Norge have made a gas and condensate discovery in the Julius prospect in the King Lear area of the North Sea, according to Statoil. The discovery well 2/4-23S, drilled by Maersk Gallant, proved gas and condensate in the Ula Formation. Statoil estimates the volumes in Julius to be between 15 MMbbl and 75 MMbbl of recoverable oil equivalent.

Searcher completes seismic survey offshore Ireland
Searcher Seismic, in cooperation with MAGE, has completed the acquisition of the Echidna Regional Broadband 2-D seismic survey covering the Porcupine and Slyne basins and the Goban Spur offshore Ireland, Searcher said in a release. Made up of about 9,100 km (5,654 miles) of high-quality, long-offset broadband 2-D seismic data, the Echidna survey is the first truly regional long-offset well-tie survey over the Irish Continental Shelf using modern processing and acquisition techniques. Data are available for both time and depth measurements, with fast-track prestack time-migration data being processed in time for evaluation of the 2015 Atlantic Margin bid round closing in September. Final data delivery is expected in March 2016.

MIDDLE EAST

Frontier oil, gas area could emerge in Lebanon
A frontier oil and natural gas province is emerging in Lebanon, according to findings from a NEOS GeoSolutions study. There were indicators of a hydrocarbon system in geoscience datasets that were interpreted, NEOS President and CEO Jim Hollis said in a company release. The neoBASIN study evaluated a 15,540-sq-km (6,000-sq-mile) area in the onshore northern half of Lebanon and in the transition zone along the Mediterranean coast. Only seven wells have ever been drilled in Lebanon. There is evidence of hydrocarbon-generating source rock and oil seeps, large structural traps and stacked plays in the area. Some of the structural traps have resistivity anomalies. Hollis said that additional data, including seismic data, need to be acquired for the most promising structures to de-risk the opportunity and secure capital.

Saudi Aramco starts CO2 tests in Ghawar Field
Saudi Aramco started injecting CO2 to try to boost extraction rates from the world’s biggest oil field as the company steps up plans to recover more crude from its deposits, Bloomberg reported. The company started injection and will put 1 MMcm/d (40 MMcf/d) of CO2 into the Uthmaniyah area south of the Ghawar Field. About 40% of what’s injected will be stored in the field.

SOUTH AMERICA

BG Group starts up sixth FPSO vessel in Santos Basin
BG Group has started production from the Cidade de Itaguaí FPSO vessel, the sixth unit to begin production across the group’s discoveries in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil, the company said. The FPSO vessel will produce from the Iracema North area of the Lula Field in the Petrobras-operated Block Bm-S-11. Anchored 240 km (149 miles) off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, the Cidade de Itaguaí is about 2,220 m (7,283 ft) above the ocean floor. This is the second leased FPSO vessel deployed on the Iracema development and will double the gross production capacity to 300 Mbbl/d of oil and 16 MMcm/d (565 MMcf/d) of natural gas from the area. The FPSO vessel also will be able to store 1.6 MMbbl of oil.

Exxon’s find offshore Guyana might be worth 12 times country’s GDP
An Exxon Mobil Corp. discovery off the coast of Guyana might hold oil and natural gas worth 12 times the South American nation’s GDP, Bloomberg stated. The Liza-1 well, which is estimated to hold more than 700 MMbbl of oil, may begin pumping crude in as few as five years, Guyana’s minister of governance said. The prospect would be on par with a recent Exxon Mobil find at the Hadrian Formation in the Gulf of Mexico and could be worth about $40 billion at today’s international crude price. Guyana produces no oil, and its GDP of $3.23 billion in 2014 ranked between Burundi and Swaziland, according to the World Bank. Exxon Mobil, which has a market value of $341 billion, has declined to provide an estimate for Liza-1 since describing the discovery as “significant” in a May 20 statement.

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