With 4,000BOPD flowed in two zones in discovery well, operator wants to find out what lies deeper
By Fred Akanni
Conoil, the Nigerian independent, has moved the HTHP swamp barge Majestic to Ango-2, to appraise the deep oil zones it tested in Ango-1 Sidetrack 3 and even probe deeper.
Ango-2 is prognosed to drill to a total depth(TD) of 18,500ft (or 5639metres) True Vertical Depth (TVD), meaning that it still wants to probe the reservoirs it could not reach, due to tough drilling conditions, in the discovery well.
Ango-1 Stk 3 flowed around 4,000 barrels of oil per day(BOPD) combined in two sands at 15,550ft (or 4,740metres )TVD and 15400ft (or 4,694metres )TVD . The find has opened up a whole new sequence in the southwestern, shallow offshore part of the Niger Delta, Africa’s most productive basin.
Conoil, in a wildcat drilling frenzy, is also drilling the Mbuotidem Deep1x , in the Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 290, located in shallow offshore south east of the Niger Delta with the Jack Up Oritsemehin, owned by Seawolf. The current depth of the well is about 12,100ft (or 3688metres) TVD. The Mbuotidem well has experienced some pressure challenges, leading to several incidents of stuck pipe. Wells drilled in the vicinity have not gone deeper than 9,000feet on average. A third rig, Imperial (owned by Depthwize, the same company that owns Majestic), is on its wayto Ekokor Deep1X in OPL 2007.
“With these probes, Conoil is trying to get the most of their assets”, says a source at the Department Of Petroleum Resources(DPR), the country’s regulatory agency. “They are hoping to increase their reserves by 150Million Barrels with these wells”, he says “now they may be on to about 75Million barrels addition”.
