The first exploratory well will take 60 days to drill and cost $60 million, the company said. The well is located in water that is a mile deep (1,700 meteres), Chevron said.
Both reports are probably by the same person, as Reuters journalist Richard Neto is also Lusa stringer in Sao Tome, according to well-versed poster Homeport.
Meanwhile, a report from Afren, which has a small stake in Block 1, says mapping and 2-D surveys of Block 1 show a high chance of a "giant" field in Block 1, which could contain as much as 500 million barrels of oil, the company said. The technical study along with some intelligible text is located at: http://www.afren.com/pdf/AfrenCPR-Block1b.pdf.
Here is the Lusa article:
Sao Tome: Chevron to begin drilling in JDZ Block-1 next month - company official
Sao Tome, Dec. 2 (Lusa) - US oil company Chevron-Texaco will being drilling exploratory wells in Block-1 of the offshore Joint Development Zone (JDZ) shared by Nigeria and Sao Tome and Principe next month, a company spokesman said Friday.
If commercial quantities of crude are discovered, production will begin in 2010, Tim Persons, the company's representative in Sao Tome, told Lusa.
Persons said the first well would be drilled at a depth of 1,700 meters, estimating it would take 60 days at a cost of USD 60 million.
Block-1, which carried a signature bonus of USD 123 million, is the first of six JDZ blocks to have been jointly awarded by Sao Tome and Nigeria.
Five other blocks, adjoining Block-1, were awarded to various consortiums on May 31 but await the signing of production sharing contracts.
Under a bilateral treaty signed in 2001, Abuja and Sao Tome share JDZ revenues in a 60:40 ration in favor of Nigeria.
RCN/SAS.
Lusa
Here is the Reuters story that also moved today on the same topic, with the Chevron source named:
Reuters news.. Chevron to start Sao Tome drilling in January
Fri Dec 2, 2005 7:54 AM ET
By Ricardo Neto
SAO TOME (Reuters) - No. 2 U.S. oil company Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) will start its first exploration well in January in a joint exploration area between Nigeria and the West African archipelago of Sao Tome and Principe, a company executive said on Friday.
Tim Persons, Chevron's director in Sao Tome, said the deep water well at a depth of 1,700 meters (5,643 feet) should be completed within 60 days at a cost of around $60 million.
"The drilling work will ... start in January," Persons told Reuters in an interview.
In the case of a commercially-viable discovery, oil production would begin in 2010, Persons said.
Of the nine offshore blocks in the joint development zone, Chevron and its larger U.S. rival Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) acquired rights to block 1 just over a year ago for a signature bonus of $123 million.
A signature bonus is an up-front payment made to a government for the right to develop an oil block, often in addition to guaranteed investments in the field.
The Gulf of Guinea has become one of the world's exploration hot spots since a series of huge oil finds in the last 20 years.
Signed in February 2001, the joint development deal establishes a 60 percent stake for Nigeria and the remaining 40 percent for Sao Tome.
http://today.reuters.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment