By Toyin Akinosho
The latest wildcat well being drilled offshore Ghana is looking like a dud. “Initial interpretation of the wireline logs and MDT data is that no movable hydrocarbons have been encountered in the well, based on the current data”, reports Rialto Energy, the Austrailian minnow which has 12.5% stake in the Offshore Accra Contract Area. “The forward plan is to complete wireline logging operations and evaluation of the well data and block prospectivity. The well will be plugged and abandoned as programmed”.
The Starfish prospect is located offshore Ghana along the prolific offshore West African Margin. The partners regard it as a large, deep-water prospect, “analogous to the Jubilee discovery with unrisked prospective resources estimated to be in the range of half a billion barrels (431 MMbbls (p50); 665 MMbbls (pmean))”.In buying its stake of the Offshore Accra Contract area in December 2012, Rialto Energy was expected to pay around $3 million, and provide a bank guarantee in respect of its participating interest share of the approved work programme and budget for the current exploration period.The company’s share of the well cost is expected to be $10Million. “The prospect was matured following reprocessing of the original 3D seismic data and the acquisition of the new 3D survey in 2011 over the outboard deep water area”, Rialto says in the release. Starfish-1 was drilled to a final total depth of 4,380 metres. Wireline logging operations were undertaken to evaluate the hydrocarbon potential of the primary target. The Offshore Accra Contract Area is operated by Ophir Energy, the Australian independent, with 20%. Other partners include Afex, also with 20%, and Vitol (30%). Tap Oil, which won the lase, holds 17.5%.
