Eni Hits Oil Pay at Mexico Probe
Thursday 23 March 2017
Italy's Eni has unearthed a large amount of oil pay at the first in a series of appraisal wells to be drilled in shallow water off Mexico.
The major said the find at the Amoca-2 probe in the south-west of the Bay of Campeche "indicated a meaningful upside to the original estimates" at the well.
Eni said the well, drilled the with Seadrill jack-up West Castor in a water depth of just 25 metres, reached total depth of 3500 metres.
It struck 110 metres of net oil pay across several good quality Pliocene reservoir sandstones.
Some 65 metres of this was found in deeper zones, which had not previously been drilled.
Oil in the shallower zones was found to be 18 degrees API, with that in the deeper zones said to be high quality light oil.
Amoca-2 was drilled in Contractual Area 1, about 200 kilometres west of Ciudad del Carmen on Mexico's Caribbean coast. It is the first well to be drilled by Eni since Mexico's 2013 energy reforms.
The well is the first in a four-well appraisal programme that will also include the Amoca-3, Mizton-2 and Tecoalli-2 probes.
Eni contracted the West Castor for the Mexico work, on a one-year charter through December 2017 at a dayrate of $110,000.
The work is part of a $245 million delineation programme for the Contractual Area 1 won by Eni in the Round 1.2 phase of Mexico's bid offering in 2015. That round was focused on appraisal and development opportunities for resources already discovered by Pemex.
The first year of Eni's investment plan includes the reprocessing of nearly 700 square kilometres of 3D seismic, a shallow hazards study and integration of seismic modelling.
The second year would include production testing and possible concept selection for development.
Eni holds 100% of Contractual Area 1 and is already assessing its options with regards to fast-tracking a phased development of the fields.
Another closely-watched upcoming well off Mexico is Talos Energy's deep-water Zama wildcat on Block 7. The well is set to spud with the semi-submersible Ensco 8503 in the second quarter.