Total S.A., a French multinational integrated oil and gas company, has made a gas condensate discovery on the Brulpadda prospects, located on Block 11B/12B in the Outeniqua Basin.
The exploration well encountered 57 metres of net gas condensate play in Lower Cretaceous reservoirs. Following the success of the main objective, the well was deepened to a final depth of 3,633 metres and has also been successful in the Brulpadda-deep prospect.
Speaking at Africa Oil Week, Dr Enzo Insalaco, Vice President Exploration Africa at Total explained that South Africa has become an interesting area for exploration.
That interest has been illustrated by the recent activity by the industry, which has seen a significant amount of seismic capture and blocks being taken in Namibia and South Africa.
“Much of that activity is early stage, so 2D or 3D,” Insalaco said.
“What we will see in the next few years is an uptick in reservoir drilling and exploration. We have a strong position in the oil basin, so we have a couple of blocks in the Orange Basin and in South Africa the 11B/12B block where this discovery was made.”
For Total, Brulpadda was certainly a high impact well for opening up a significant petroleum basin.
“It was a very bold technical well,” Insalaco continued.
“Many people may not realise that the well was actually drilled on 2D. It is a deep offshore well, so drilling on 2D was a very bold move. But given our understanding of the basin and the innovations we did on the operations, this well could be drilled safely and successfully on 2D.”
“As we know, it was an operational success just as much as a technical success; we drilled the well within budget, within time and in terms of NPT we have about 3% of NPT and 3% waiting on weather.
“If you consider the conditions, that is fantastic operational performance. We drilled the well to the main reservoir log and then we went down to a deeper reservoir.
Insalaco added that they were ready for 3D and were already negotiating contracts.
With the initial phase of the 3D seismic acquisition programme over the basin completed, the Brulpadda well results will be integrated with the 3D seismic data ahead of the drilling programme in 2020, which will include up to three exploration wells.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
