Page 27: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2019)

26 28

Odfjell Drilling’s Deepwater Stavanger.

Source: Wintershall

Source: BP “It’s de? nitely busier than it has been here,” he says. “Brazil ary, it completed Glaucus, in 2,063 meters water depth, using went through quiet phase as Petrobras focused on appraisal. the Stena IceMax. Exxon said preliminary estimates suggest

Now we are entering another wave of exploration and these Glaucus contains 5-8 Tcf of gas in place resource.

are all standalone-scale projects, mostly in the Santos Basin.” The ? rst well in Lebanon is due on Block 4 by Total, al- though the date has slipped. “This is a pretty big province and pretty lightly drilled,” he says. “One of the attractions of dis-

LATIN AMERICA

Brazil isn’t the only game in Latin America; the Equatorial coveries that have been made is they can be developed with margin, especially Guyana and Suriname, have come under very few development wells. You get an enormous recovery focus. In French Guiana, Total, again, is drilling the Nasua-1 rate from single wells, for that play; greater than100 million well in 2,000 meters water depth, 150 kilometers offshore us- BOE a well. Egypt has a tremendous domestic gas market and ing the Ensco DS-9. Going to press, operations were ongoing. the same with Israel, so there is a market. As volumes get big-

There is also the Jethro prospect, in 1,350 meters water ger, the requirement to start exporting to Europe will emerge depth on the Orinduik Block, offshore Guyana. This well is and there are various possibilities to get the gas to Europe.” on acreage adjacent to ExxonMobil’s proli? c Stabroek Block and will target a 200 million BOE prospect in the same play OTHER REGIONS as the recent Hammerhead ? nd. Shell has lined up the Noble Globetrotter II drillship to sink a frontier exploration well in the Black Sea offshore Bulgaria

MEDITERRANEAN in the ? rst quarter of this year.

Having risen dramatically in prominence in recent years, On January 6, Eni started drilling the Kekra-1 deepwater the Mediterranean remains an active area. Recent develop- wildcat, in the Indus G Block, some 230 kilometers offshore ments in Israel, with the giant Tamar and then Leviathan dis- Pakistan, using the Saipem 12000 drillship.

coveries, and, since then the fast track of Zohr, really put it the In Papua New Guinea, Total is targeting deep water this region on the map. Last year, Eni made the Calypso discovery year, with the “giant” Mailu prospect well. in Block 6 offshore Cyprus, in 2,074 meters water depth, fol- While not in the deepest water from a global perspective, lowing Aphrodite in 2011. Siccar Point’s Blackrock prospect, West of Shetland, is a

This year, there are ? ve potential wells in Cyprus, says deepwater well in UK Continental Shelf terms, at 1,444 me-

Latham, three from Eni, following Calypso. Exxon has com- ters water depth. Siccar Point announced in March it com- pleted two deepwater wells, testing multi-Tcf in Block 10. It menced spudding an exploration well at Blackrock using the completed the Delphine well earlier this year and, late Febru- Diamond Offshore semisubmersible rig Ocean GreatWhite.

March/April 2019 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 27 18-31 OE 2019.indd 27 4/15/2019 3:33:53 PM