Pura Vida comes up dry in off Morocco well

Pura Vida Energy, an Australia-based oil explorer, has drilled the MZ-1 exploration well in the Mazagan permit, offshore Morocco, to a depth of 4,653 metres within the Lower Cretaceous, without encountering oil.

Pura Vida started drilling the MZ-1 well with the Atwood Achiever drillship in June 2015.

According to the company’s press release, the preliminary results from all of the data from the wireline log that has been run to evaluate the entire open hole section of the well, gathered to date showed no effective reservoir in either of the secondary objectives in the Cenomanian and Aptian intervals and there were no oil shows encountered.

The company explained that its current operations include running casing, prior to drilling ahead to the firm Total Depth (TD) of 5,600 metres in the Jurassic, to test the primary objectives of the basin floor fans, Fan-1 and Fan-2. Pura Vida added that, after drilling through these targets, a decision will be made whether to deepen the well to 6,150 metres to test a third Jurassic fan, Fan-3.

Managing Director, Damon Neaves, commented: “We are disappointed that the well failed to encounter reservoir in the secondary objectives in the Cretaceous, however we expect to intersect the primary targets in the Jurassic and look forward to reporting those results shortly.” 

The Mazagan permit is operated by Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas LLC with 52%, other joint venture partners being Pura Vida Energy NL with 23%, and ONHYM with 25%.

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