Drilling starts to bring African field back to life after nearly 30 years

August 6, 2025, by Dragana Nikše

Akrake Petroleum, a subsidiary of Singapore’s Rex International Holding, has spudded the first well in a field undergoing redevelopment offshore Benin.

Borr Gerd jackup rig; Source: Crystal Offshore Middle East

According to Rex, the first well in the Sèmè field in Block 1 off the coast of Benin was drilled on August 4 using the Borr Gerd jack-up drilling rig. The drilling is part of a 100-day three-well work program to redevelop the field using a phased approach.

The 2018-built Gerd jack-up rig, which is of PPL Pacific Class 400 design, was selected to get the job done in April, with the drilling previously expected to start in July. The rig is capable of operating in water depths of up to 400 feet, and its maximum drilling depth is 30,000 feet.

The campaign includes two horizontal production wells in the previously developed H6 formation, as well as a deeper vertical appraisal well to gather data from the H7 and H8 reservoirs. The Singaporean firm believes this could facilitate the potential advancement to Phase 2 of the development.

Steve Moore, Deputy Chief Operating Officer of Rex and General Manager of Akrake Petroleum, said: “We are excited to bring oil production back to the Sèmè Field and to Benin after such a long time, and we would like to express our deep appreciation to the Benin authorities and our locapartner Octogone E&P S.A. for their strong support and cooperation in all aspects of this drilling operation, allowing us to achieve first oil in as short a time as possible.”

Rex expects the drilling campaign for the phased development to be completed in Q4 2025, when the refurbished mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) and a floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) contracted in April will arrive at the location.

Rex finds MOPU and FSO for Benin oilfield redevelopment

Vessels

Once the two are installed, the MOPU will be hooked to the newly-drilled wells, and production is expected to start in Q4 2025 at initial production rates of approximately 15,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

Along with the restart of production in the Sèmè field after almost three decades of inactivity, more data on the subsurface will be collected. This will be analyzed together with the recently reprocessed 3D seismic data obtained in 2007 to optimize further field development and potentially tap into deeper reservoir sections.

According to updated results of an independent qualified person’s report (QPR), the H6 reservoir holds 11.4 million stock tank barrels of oil (MMstb) in low 1P reserves, 10.9 MMstb in base 2P, and 13.6 MMstb in high 3P reserves.

Block 1 covers 551 square kilometers in shallow water ranging from 20 to 30 meters. The Sèmè field was discovered by Union Oil in 1969 and developed by Saga Petroleum. It produced approximately 22 million barrels of oil (MMbbl) between 1982 and 1998, when production was stopped due to low oil prices and large volumes of water accompanying oil production.

Partners in the production sharing contract for Block 1 are Rex’s affiliate Akrake Petroleum, with a 76% interest, the government of Benin with 15%, and Octogone Trading with 9%.

Akrake is a special-purpose company set up to assess the field’s development potential. Akrake is owned 100% by Lime Petroleum, which is in turn owned 80.14% by Rex.