The Snoek well, southeast of the Liza discovery, hit high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs, the company said.
Earlier this month the major said it had found “meaningful” reserves of oil offshore Mexico after becoming the first international oil company to drill a well in the country following a 2013 reform to open up the sector to investors.
Hurricane Energy’s Halifax well has encountered a hydrocarbon column of at least 1,156 m (3,792 ft), supporting its view that the prospect is linked to the Lancaster Field to form a single large hydrocarbon accumulation, the company said in a news release March 27.
The company plans to perform a three- to six-month extended production test starting in third-quarter 2017, following the completion in April of a light oil resource volume assessment, to help determine the commerciality of the discovery.
The first DST flowed from an 18 m interval at a maximum rate of about 4,500 barrels of oil per day on a 60/64-in. choke. For the second DST, an additional 8.5-m zone was added, and the well flowed at a maximum rate of 4,200 bbl/d.
To better gauge resource potential, ExxonMobil said the discovery is being evaluated with two sidetracks drilled. A well test is underway.
Advanced seismic data helped the company discover additional pay.
A test conducted with an electric submersible pump in the Guadalupe Formation across multiple sand units resulted in a production rate of about 1,800 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d) of 16 degrees API, with a 17% water cut through a choke of 38/64 mm and wellhead pressure of 80 pounds per square inch, the company said.
Drilled to a total depth of 144,350 meters (m), the Zohr 5x well encountered a continuous hydrocarbon column of about 180 m. The results confirm Zohr’s potential of 30 Tcf original gas in place.
GeoPark said the well was drilled 780 m north of the Jacana 3 appraisal well further down dip to a bottom-hole location below the previous lowest-known oil, where it hit oil in the Guadalupe Formation.