Maersk is first to find in Angola's deepwater pre-salt 

Maersk Oil and its partners including Sonangol have declared the Azul-1 deepwater exploration well, located in Block 23 in the Kwanza Basin, a discovery well. This is the first well to penetrate pre-salt objectives in Angolan deepwater. It was drilled in water depths of 923 m and reached a final depth of 5334 m.

The condition of the well prevented an assessment of flow capacity by a conventional test. A mini-drill stem test enabled the recovery of two good quality oil samples. The preliminary interpretation of the data indicated a potential flow capacity greater than 3000 b/d of oil. Taking into account these encouraging results, Maersk Oil will further evaluate the results and will proceed with further exploration work in the block.

Sonangol is the block concessionaire of Block 23 with Maersk Oil as operator with a 50% working interest with partners Svenska (30%) and Sonangol (20%). Lars Nydahl Jorgensen, head of exploration at Maersk Oil, said: 'We are encouraged by the results of our first pre-salt exploration well in this region, which was also the first ever deepwater well targeting pre-salt reservoirs in the Kwanza Basin. The result may be a further step towards our goal of building up a significant business in Angola. There is substantial evaluation work ahead of us to determine whether the discovery is enough to invest further to get production going. This will be done by, amongst other things, state of the art reprocessing of seismic data. Fully appraising the discovery will take several years and it is far too early to guess the outcome'.

Maersk Oil entered Angola in June 2005 when it acquired a 50% interest and operatorship of Block 16. In November 2006, it acquired a 50% interest and operatorship of Blocks 8 and 23 with Svenska Petroleum Exploration (30%) and Sonangol (20%). Maersk Oil made the Chissonga discovery on Block 16 in 2009 and drilled two further appraisal wells in 2010 and 2011. Three exploration wells are planned for 2012 and 2013 for Blocks 8 and 23.

First Break - February 2012 - Issue 2 - Volume 30