Afren Plc says an exploration well on the shallow-water Ebok north fault block (Ebok NFB) has encountered 370 ft (113 m) true vertical thickness of net oil pay in good quality sands.
The well was spudded last month by the jackup Transocean Adriatic lX. It was targeting a separate fault block structure north of the main Ebok field, and found oil in Tertiary reservoir sands equivalent to those in production at Ebok.
Afren says the discovery of significant oil pay at this location underlines the prospectivity across the wider Ebok/Okwok/OML115 area. Logging operations have been completed, with early analysis suggesting oil in place exceeding 100 MMbbl, toward the upper end of pre-drill expectations.
The well will be suspended while Afren and partner Oriental determine an optimal development solution. This will likely involve synergies using the existing production, storage, and offtake infrastructure at the main Ebok field, with early drilling of new production wells from the existing wellhead platform at the Ebok West fault block, followed by a full field development of Ebok NFB.
Adriatic IX will next drill early production wells at the recent Okoro East discovery.
