Texaco and Famfa Oil Make Major Deepwater Discovery Offshore Nigeria
A major wildcat discovery has been made on OPL Block 216, which is located in the deep waters approximately 70 miles offshore Nigeria in the central Niger Delta. The find, which may reach several hundred million bbl of recoverable oil, was made by Texaco and its Nigerian partner, Famfa Oil Limited, according to an announcement today by Texaco.
Agbami-1, the discovery well, encountered 420 net ft of pay in multiple oil zones from 8,200 ft to the total depth of 12,400 ft. Oil-saturated, stacked reservoir sands ranging in overall column thickness from 400 to more than 1,000 feet were penetrated by the well and showed high quality oil of 35-45 degree API gravity, with very low sulfur content. The well was spudded on July 15th in a record 4,700 ft of water, Nigeria's deepest. It reached total depth late in November and was then suspended temporarily to permit flow-testing for production at a future date.
"We have made excellent progress in focusing and positioning our exploration program in areas that can yield high impact results," said John J. O'Connor, President of Texaco Worldwide Exploration and Production. "This discovery is a direct result of those efforts. The Agbami-1 shows significant oil reservoirs, however, we will not know the full magnitude of this discovery until further appraisal drilling and testing are conducted later this year."
The Nigerian Petroleum Authority granted Texaco and Famfa exploration rights to the 617,000-acre OPL Block 216 in late 1996. Thereafter, Texaco acquired, processed, and interpreted 3D seismic data to enable the company to reduce the cycle time for this well to approximately one and one-half years.
The operator of the Agbami-1 is Famfa, Texaco's partner and an independent Nigerian oil company. Texaco is acting as technical advisor. Ownership interests in the discovery are defined by the terms of a deepwater production sharing contract (PSC) between Texaco and Famfa. As technical advisor, Texaco currently holds a 100% contractor's interest subject to further provisions of the PSC.
"Nigeria has been identified as one of the key focus areas of Texaco's upstream business strategy," O'Connor said. "We hope to build upon the long standing relationships we have forged in Nigeria, and to work with our business partners to develop the country's vast energy resources in a responsible and environmentally sensitive fashion."
Texaco's deepwater operations in Nigeria OPL 216 are managed through Texaco's wholly owned subsidiary, Star Deep Water Petroleum Limited. Texaco has been operating in Nigeria since 1913, and currently produces some 65,000 b/d oil from offshore operations in the Pennington and adjacent fields, through Texaco Overseas (Nigeria) Petroleum Company Unlimited.
By Dev George