Page 31: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Mar/Apr 2020)

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Image right: Odfjell’s

Deepsea Stavanger semi- submersible drilling rig

Source: Wintershall

Outeniqua Basin 175km off South Africa – proving a “world- Saipem 12000 drillship, was a disappointment. class gas and oil play”, according to Total, in area with simi- Despite the patches of bad news there’s positivity and that’s lar environments to west of Shetland. The well was drilled in because the sector is pro?table, says Latham. “For us to make 1,400m water depth using Odfjell’s Deepsea Stavanger semi- that call so near to the end of the year, when assessment of the submersible which is due to return to the area in Q2 this year year’s success tends to improve over time, is something. Pro?t- for 10 months to drill up to three exploration wells. ability has come roaring back.”

Other interesting ?nds included the Orca discovery, says

Latham, in 2510m water depth in the BirAllah area, 125 km Focus remains in 2020 off Mauritania. It’s been estimated to contain 1.5-2 billion But operators are not getting silly. Budgets are not expected boe (or mean gas initially in place/GIIP of 13 Tcf) according to grow for 2020, if anything, they’re 10% or so lower because to Kosmos, the operator which, along with Marsouin-1 in many companies have really dialled back on their exploration

Block C-8 in 2400m water depth, it says would be enough for spend, he says. But, “those sticking with it are still drilling and the world-scale LNG project. there are a number of high impact wells.” These are the ma-

ExxonMobil also made the Glaucus discovery in 2063m wa- jors, not least Total, which again leads the deepwater explora- ter depth, in Block 10 offshore Cyrus; a multi-Tcf ?nd. Mean- tion pack, as it did in 2019, but there are also some national while, CNOOC made an ultra-deepwater basement gas ?nd, oil companies, including Qatar Petroleum, which is a partner

Yongle 8-3, in the Qiongdongnan basin. BHP also made three in a number of 2020’s signi?cant deepwater exploration wells, ?nds “of interest” offshore Trinidad and Tobago; Tuk, Hi-Hat as well as players like Kosmos, Cairn and Woodside. and Bele. These were in 2102m water depth in the Northern “There’s still appetite for frontier exploration,” says Latham. license area and while not massive, they were commercial, with “The watch word is commerciality. Five years ago, the philosophy 1-2 Tcf each and nearby infrastructure to tie into. was ‘build it and they will come’. Now, there’s very much require-

It’s not all rosy. One of the wells on the watch list last year was ment that if a well is successful there’s going a reasonable feasi-

Chevron’s Kingsholm high-pressure, high-temperature (20,000 bility rate of commercialisation without a long lead time.” Part psi) probe with an estimated 300 million BOE of resource in of this is driven by uncertainty, with increasing discussion about the US Gulf of Mexico. Little information has been made avail- energy transition, nearer term projects are preferable. Discoveries able about the result. Meanwhile, Eni’s Kekra-01 well in the also need to compete with the existing portfolio, so they need low

Indus G Block, some 230km offshore Pakistan, drilled Saipem’s cost break evens and big volumes, to bring down the cost curve.

march/april 2020 OFFSHORE ENGINEER 31