Tullow suspends oil drilling
A Tullow exploration site in Turkana. Tullow Oil Plc has suspended exploration of its third well in Marsabit County after failing to find oil some 4,255 metres below the surface March 1, 2013. FILE
Tullow Oil Plc has suspended exploration of its third well in Marsabit County after failing to find oil some 4,255 metres below the surface.
The British oil explorer has announced that drilling on Paipai-1 within block 10A has been temporary closed as further evaluation options are carried out to determine its suitability.
“As we were unable to recover the hydrocarbons encountered whilst drilling, the well needs additional assessment. We will now carefully evaluate all the data and review the available technical options, which include possible flow testing and reservoir stimulation,” announced Tullow’s exploration director Angus McCoss in a statement.
Drilling on the Paipai-1 well started in September last year in the northern Kenya after a favourable seismic survey identified the area to be "a high-impact potential impact exploration target".
Tullow holds a 50 per cent stake on the Block 10A while Canada’s Africa Oil has a 30 per cent interest and London-listed Afren, has the remaining 20 per cent.
The well in the Anza Basin, which measures 80, 000 square kilometres, was to be sunk to a depth of 4112 metres to test its Cretaceous and Jurassic sandstone which had the same characteristics with the successful producing basins of Sudan.
A 200 metre thick rock hampered the efforts by the firm to drill the sandstone to determine viability of the well.
“Light hydrocarbon shows were encountered whilst drilling a 55 metre thick gross sandstone interval. However, several attempts to sample the initial reservoir fluids were unsuccessful. More work needs to be done to give a conclusive analysis of Paipai and inform any further exploration work in Block 10A,” said part of the statement sent to the news room on Friday morning.
Tullow’s independent resource evaluator had prospected the basin to hold 121 million barrels of oil at best estimates.
Sakson PR-5 rig, used for the Block 10A, has been decommissioned and will be moved to South Lokichar Basin’s Block 10BB to drill the Etuko prospect according to the company in the next three months.
The announcement comes barely a fortnight after it completed testing program for the Twiga South-1 well which showed it has a cumulative flow rate of 2,812 barrels of oil per day.
