London | – Tullow Oil plc, an Irish multinational oil and gas exploration company headquartered in London, United Kingdom reported it did not find hydrocarbons with its Tapendar-1 exploration well drilled in the C-10 license offshore Mauritania. Tullow said it will plug and abandon the well.
The objective of Tapendar-1 was to test two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age. At the Miocene interval a major undrilled turbidite fairway was penetrated and encountered excellent quality, well developed reservoir sands. However, these sands were water-bearing at this location, Tullow said.
The deeper Upper Cretaceous target tested a salt flank play, which did not encounter sands at this location. The well reached total depth of 3,752 m. After the well is plugged and abandoned, the Stena DrillMax drillship will leave Mauritania.
Tapendar-1 is the second exploration well in Tullow’s Mauritania exploration campaign, following the Fregate-1 well, which was drilled in February.
Tullow, which has a significant exploration position offshore Mauritania, stated that a variety of exploration prospects and plays in the area, independent of the Tapendar and Fregate results, remain highly prospective.
Data from the Fregate-1 and Tapendar-1 wells will now be analyzed and integrated into the seismic data previously acquired across Tullow’s Mauritania acreage before the next well locations and timings are confirmed. Seismic acquisition in Blocks C-3 and C-18 will also continue this year.
Tullow operates the C-10 license with 59.1% interest, partnering with Premier Oil PLC 6.23%, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. 11.12%, Petronas 13.5%, and SMHPM 10%.
