It’s been a busy few months in the exploration sector. Louise Smyth highlights some of the latest advances.
Han sido algunos meses muy intensos en el sector de exploración. Louise Smyth destaca algunos de los últimos avances.
Die Explorationsbranche hat ein paar betriebsame Monate hinter sich. Louise Smyth beleuchtet einige der neuesten Fortschritte.
Search and deploy A
Fig. 1. Despite an uncertain economic backdrop, exploration has been booming. Commentators remain optimistic that oil companies will not start scrapping new projects because they fear they are unprofitable.
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lthough the ‘oil bust’ of 2014 is the gloomy story that’s dominating current media coverage, the effects of this drop in price on
exploration will take some time to trickle through. Some commentators remain optimistic that oil companies will not start scrapping new projects because they fear they are unprofitable. And as the past few months have shown, despite this uncertain economic backdrop, exploration – not only in oil but also in gas – has been booming. Petrobras, as one would expect, is
a player with plenty of news in this sector. Perhaps its most interesting announcement in recent months was an unprecedented natural gas find at a block off Columbia’s Carribean coast, which it owns in partnership with Ecopetrol and Repsol. Te discovery was the result of successful drilling of the Orca 1 exploratory well in the Tayrona block, located 25 miles off the coast of the northern Colombian province
of La Guajira. Te well was drilled to a water depth of 640m (400ft) and penetrated 4,240m (13,900ft) into the rock layer. Te gas (its volume was not announced) was discovered at a depth of 3,600m (11,800ft), making it the first hydrocarbon find in deep waters off Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Petrobras will keep drilling to evaluate the discovery. In late November 2014, Petrobras completed drilling the first appraisal well in the Libra Consortium, the 3-BRSA- 1255 (3-RJS-731), known as NW1. Located in the Northwest portion of the Libra block, in the pre-salt layer of the Santos Basin, the well is approximately 4km southeast of the discovery well, the 2-ANP-2A-RJS. Te well reached final depth at 5,734m and is located 185km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, at a water depth of 1,963m. Drilling results confirmed an oil column of about 290m and a reservoir that shows good porosity and permeability. Samples collected from the well confirmed that the oil of 27° API is the same as the one found in the
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