Borders & Southern gets Darwin estimate. Hopes to attract partners for further drilling

Borders & Southern, a UK-based oil and gas exploration company with offshore assets in the Falkland Islands, is optimistic about its Darwin assets following an independent resource review.

Namely, the company on Wednesday said the independent evaluation of the Darwin East discovery and the adjacent Darwin West untested fault block lead to a substantial increase in estimated resources. Un-risked Best Estimate total recoverable liquids (condensate and LPG) for Darwin East and West is 462 MMbb. Borders & Southern made the Darwin discovery in 2012.

Composition analysis of the hydrocarbon samples collected in the Darwin discovery well (61/17-1) demonstrated that the gas is a very rich, sweet gas capable of producing liquid condensate and LPG. Borders & Southern has previously discussed development concepts whereby the liquid condensate could be produced and the “dry” gas re-injected back into the reservoir, allowing it to be available for a future LNG project, subject to commerciality, the company said on Wednesday.

Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA) which performed an independent evaluation work, investigated the potential to produce the LPGs (Propane and Butane) in addition to the condensate.

According to Borders, GCA prepared a revised Equation of State model of the rich gas and updated the dynamic reservoir model for Darwin East and Darwin West. Utilising six vertical production wells and four vertical gas injector wells (five wells on each fault block) they derived the following best estimate: Darwin East (2C) resources of condensate & LPG at 170 MMbb, and Darwin West prospective resources at 292 MMbb.

Borders said that the vloumes were based on a combined development of the core areas of both structures into a single FPSO, with 480 MMscf produced gas. Total recovery of liquids from the 25 year period evaluated is 462 MMbbl. The combined liquids production of condensate and LPG peaks at 91,100 bbl/day.

Chief Executive, Howard Obee, said: “We are delighted with the results of this independent evaluation. It reaffirms our belief that Darwin East and West represent a very material resource. And with the recent recovery of Brent crude we are optimistic that this evaluation will assist in our efforts to secure partners and funding for the next phase of drilling.”

The company said it would comment further on the economic impact of these new resource estimates in the announcement of final results for 2017, due at the end of March 2018.