Wednesday 23 November 2016

US supermajor gets going at highly-anticipated Mesurado-1 wildcat with Seadrill drillship

ExxonMobil has kicked off drilling at its much-anticipated and delayed Mesurado-1 exploration well off Liberia.

The US supermajor and partner Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COP) spudded the deep-water well in Block LB-13 on Tuesday using the Seadrill drillship West Saturn.

The well, situated around 80 miles off the coast and in 2500 metres of water, is targeting Late Cretaceous sands, London-listed COP said.

The Calgary-based player did not say, however, how long drilling is expected to take.

ExxonMobil was known to be eyeing drilling on the block in the fourth quarter after submitting an environmental impact assessment in April ahead of its drilling plans.

The outbreak of Ebola in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone more than two years ago forced ExxonMobil to delay drilling of the Mesurado-1 well in July 2014. This was mainly due to the lack of expatriate workers in the region following the outbreak.

The US giant is operator of the block on 83%, with COP on 17%. The former is carrying the latter for drilling at the well.

Elsewhere in Liberia, UK junior African Petroleum said on Wednesday it is exiting the country after failing to gain extensions to production sharing contracts for a pair of offshore blocks, which expired in June.

The London-based player was unable to nail down any exploration partners for blocks LB-08 and LB-09.