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Friday, April 25, 2014
Irish firm Tullow Oil saw a disappointment off the coast of Mauritania when its Tapendar-1 failed to encounter commercial quantities of oil or gas. The well was drilled on Block C-10 to a total depth of 3,752 meters using the Stena DrillMax drillship.
The Tapendar-1 well was being drilled to test two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age. At the Miocene interval a major undrilled turbidite fairway was penetrated and encountered excellent quality, well developed, reservoir sands. However, these sands were water bearing at this location. The deeper Upper Cretaceous target tested a salt flank play, which at this location, did not encounter any sands.
The is currently being plugged and abandoned after which the Stena DrillMax drill ship will leave Mauritania.
The disappointment at Tapendar-1 follows the drilling of the Fregate-1 on Block 7 offshore Maurtania. Tullow said the Fregate-1 achieved an important technical breakthrough with up to 30 meters net gas-condensate and oil pay in multiple sands.
Tullow has a significant exploration position offshore Mauritania. A variety of exploration prospects and plays, independent of the Tapendar and Frégate results, remain highly prospective. Data from the Frégate-1 and Tapendar-1 wells will now be analyzed and integrated into the seismic data previously acquired across Tullow’s Mauritania acreage before the next well locations and timings are confirmed. Seismic acquisition in Blocks C-3 and C-18 will also continue this year.
Angus McCoss, Exploration Director, Tullow Oil plc, commented: “The Tapendar-1 frontier exploration well was a bold attempt to open a new oil play in this area of Tullow’s highly prospective offshore Mauritania acreage which the Group has built up in pursuit of the next Jubilee-type discovery. At this well location, two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age failed to encounter hydrocarbons. Following these opening wells, we and our partners will now pause to analyse the data gathered from the exploration campaign thus far. We will then decide on the location and timings of the next wells which will continue to focus on exploring for conventional oil plays.”
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