Masirah Oil wraps up drilling program in Oman

Following the drilling of two Yumna field development wells, Masirah Oil has completed the drilling of three exploration prospects that were located near the Yumna field, located in the Arabian Sea offshore Oman.

The first prospect, Zakhera, was drilled 11 kilometres south of the Yumna Field. The well was spud in late February, using the Shelf Drilling Tenacious jack-up rig.

Before that, the Tenacious rig was moved from the Yumna field where it had completed two new additional production wells, Yumna 2 and Yumna 3.

Masirah said in an update on Monday that the target reservoir in the Zakhera well came in on depth with good oil shows encountered but the sand quality was poor.

Yumna East was drilled three kilometres east of the Yumna field. Good quality sands were encountered in the target reservoir. However, the reservoir was water-filled.

The third prospect, Yumna North, was drilled six kilometres to the north of the Yumna field. This too encountered good quality reservoir sands as prognosed but the reservoir was water-filled.

The results confirmed the extents of the good quality Lower Aruma sandstone and will help refine Masirah Oil’s understanding of the trap mechanisms in the area.

Notably, major costs savings were achieved by drilling five wells in one campaign. The exploration wells were drilled for about $3.5 million each, equivalent to less than $1,700 per metre.

According to Masirah, cost-effective drilling will help it to further de-risk additional exploration prospects, enabling it to continue to pursue an active exploration programme in Block 50 Oman

Following the successful drilling of two Yumna field development wells, Masirah has upgraded the liquid capacity of its production facilities to 30,000 barrels per day to cater to the increased production from the three Yumna production wells.

The three wells were tested steadily over a week at rates of 20,000 barrels of oil per day in March 2021 and the production rate has since then been optimised in accordance with the reservoir management plan, aimed at maximising recovery from the Yumna field.

Masirah Oil holds a 100 per cent interest in the Block 50 Oman concession. Rex International holds an effective interest of 86.37 per cent in Masirah Oil.

Dan Broström, Executive Chairman of Rex, said, “We will now study the well results in detail to prepare for the next exploration drilling so that we can unlock the potential that we are confident the 17,000-square-kilometre block holds.

“Now that the production facilities have been upgraded, we will continue to concentrate on our sustained production from the Yumna Field. “

“In 2020, gross production was approximately 2.12 million barrels from one well. With three producing wells and upgraded infrastructure, we hope to produce substantially more in 2021. We aim to announce production achieved on a monthly basis going forward”.