Tower Resources working to identify drilling prospects off Cameroon

Oil company Tower Resources, focusing on near-field exploration/appraisal in Cameroon, has hired Oilfield International Ltd (“OIL”) as Competent Person (“CP”) to prepare a Reserves Report on Tower’s Thali license, offshore Cameroon.

The Thali block, formerly known as Dissoni, sits in the Rio del Rey basin, off Cameroon. Tower was awarded the PSC on 15 September 2015 for an Initial Exploration Period of 3 years.

Jeremy Asher, Chairman & CEO, said: “We are looking forward to completing a more detailed evaluation of the many prospects on the Thali block, especially the existing discoveries at Njonji. Our work and OIL’s work, over the coming weeks, should identify new potential leads and prospects, and will crystallise greater confidence in the volumetric estimates. This will form the basis for the Reserves Report and our drilling plans.”

Under the contract awarded by Tower Resources, OIL will review Tower’s work on the Thali license to date, including historical well data and regional datasets. The preliminary reprocessed 3D seismic data, which Tower has now received from DMT Petrologic, together with the final dataset to be received over the next couple of weeks, will also be incorporated into the Reserves Report. OIL expects to complete its work during May 2018, with the report expected to be completed and available reasonably soon after, Tower said.

The Thali PSC covers an area of 119.2 square kilometers, with water depths ranging from 8 to 48 meters, in the eastern part of the Niger Delta.

According to Tower, the Rio del Rey basin has, to date, produced over one billion barrels of oil and has estimated remaining reserves of 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (“boe”), primarily at depths of less than 2,000 meters.

The Rio del Rey is a sub-basin of the Niger Delta, an area in which over 34.5 billion barrels of oil has been discovered, with 2.5 billion boe attributed to the Cameroonian section.

Tower thinks that the Thali Block has the potential to hold up to four distinct oil play systems, including the established play in which three discovery wells, one gas (Rumpi-1), one oil and gas (Njonji-2) and one oil (Njonji-1), have already been drilled.

The current contingent Oil-In-Place estimate for the Njonji discovery is 39 million barrels (Pmean, gross) with an estimated 7 to 15 million barrels of recoverable oil. These have historically been viewed as sub-commercial discoveries, but once the re-interpretation of seismic imaging has been achieved Tower sees potential to add incremental oil reserves to achieve commerciality.

There is also significant potential to develop prospects at deeper levels, in both structural and stratigraphic traps, once better imaging has been achieved, Tower says.

In a recent presentation, Tower said that drilling operation might start in or after the third quarter of 2018. Tower, however, stressed the provided timing was indicative, subject to change, and that drilling was based on further financing.

Offshore Energy Today Staff