Afren Strikes Oil at Ebok NFB, Offshore Nigeria

Afren plc announces that the Ebok North Fault Block exploration well, offshore south east Nigeria, has encountered 370 ft true vertical thickness (TVT) of net oil pay in excellent quality reservoir sands.

The Ebok North Fault Block (“Ebok NFB”) exploration well was spudded on 12 April 2012 by Afren and Oriental Energy Resources (“Oriental”), and reached a total vertical (and measured) depth of 4,320 ft, with the Transocean Adriatic lX jack-up drilling rig. The well was targeting a separate fault block structure located to the north of the main Ebok field, and has successfully encountered 370 ft net pay (TVT) of good quality oil in the same Tertiary reservoir sands equivalent to those that have been developed and are in production at the main Ebok field development. The discovery of significant oil pay at this location underlines the high-grade prospectivity that exists across the wider Ebok/Okwok/OML 115 area, and represents an important step towards unlocking the full volume and value potential of what is a core hub of Afren’s portfolio.

Logging operations at the Ebok NFB well have been completed, with data obtained supporting a PmeanSTOIIP in excess of 100 million barrels of oil, towards the upper end of Afren’s pre-drill expectations. The well will now be suspended whilst Afren and Oriental determine the optimal development solution for Ebok NFB. This will likely incorporate synergies using the existing production, storage and offtake infrastructure at the main Ebok field and could involve the early drilling of new production wells from the existing wellhead platform at Ebok West Fault Block, followed by a full field development of Ebok NFB. The Transocean Adriatic IX rig will shortly commence the drilling of early production wells at the recent Okoro East discovery.

Osman Shahenshah, Chief Executive of Afren, commented:

“We are delighted to have continued our run of exploration success this year with the Ebok NFB well, which follows on from the Okoro East discovery also offshore south east Nigeria and the Simrit-2 exploration well in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The proximity of Ebok NFB to existing infrastructure at the main Ebok field production hub means that we can quickly monetise these newly discovered volumes. We now look forward to the test results from Simrit-2 discovery in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, followed by exploration drilling in East Africa.”

[mappress]
Source: Afren, May 14, 2012