Porcupine Basin attracts Total
Total is the latest major oil company to move into the Porcupine Basin offshore Ireland, a region that has been generating interest across the industry. It has entered into two separate agreements with Providence Resources and Sosina Exploration that will give it the option to farm into Frontier Exploration Licence FEL 2/14 as well as securing a 50% WI and operatorship of Licensing Option 16/27. FEL 2/14 is the location of the upcoming 53/6-A Druid/Drombeg well which is due to spud at the end of this month and was highlighted in our ‘Wells to watch 2017’ report. Click here for report LO 16/27 is to the north of Druid/Drombeg and contains the Avalon prospect.Providence has also agreed an option to farm out a further 20% of LO 16/27 to Cairn.
Read more...Wells to watch in 2017
Since the oil price crash of 2014, exploration has been particularly badly hit as companies looked to trim expenditure. Wood Mackenzie estimates that 2017 exploration will account for 8% of upstream expenditure, down from historic norms of 14%. In this more difficult environment, any surviving exploration has tended to be led by majors, for example ExxonMobil’s giant Liza discovery offshore Guyana in 2015. In our most recent Exploration Watch, we highlight wells due to spud in 2017 that involve independent companies, with resources estimates greater than 100mmboe. Our exception is the much anticipated multi-billion barrel potential Korpfjell prospect in the Barents Sea offshore Norway, which is operated by Statoil and partnered by major companies.
Read more...2017 Senegal appraisal to kick off in January
Cairn Energy confirmed today that it will return to drilling offshore Senegal by the end of January this year, with two firm wells designed to further evaluate its 473mmbbl SNE discovery. The Stena DrillMax is contracted for these two appraisal wells together with multiple follow on options yet to be confirmed but which could include exploration wells in addition to further appraisal.
Read more...Five themes from oil majors’ 2015 updates
This post is an excerpt from the latest edition of our Catalytic Converter monthly (link), published on 25 February 2015.
As the Big Oil year-end 2014 reporting season draws to an end, we reflect on the main messages from the strategy updates.
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