CHARIOT Oil and Gas has announced that the Tapir South well offshore Namibia has failed to find commercial hydro-carbons, and will now be plugged and abandoned.
The exploration well in Northern Block 1811A in the Namibe basin offshore has reached a total depth of 4 879 metres Total Vertical Depth Subsea (TVDss), a media statement issued by the company and published on its website on Monday said.Chariot Oil and Gas Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Paul Welch noted that whilst the results of the Tapir South well are disappointing, this is the first well of a longer-term drilling campaign within a frontier region, and only the second well ever to have been drilled in the Namibe basin.’Our understanding of this basin is rapidly improving, and we expect this well to provide more information on the character and maturity of the potential source rocks when we carry out detailed analyses on the recovered samples,’ he explained.As is usual whenever an oil explorer finds a dry well, the company stressed that the exercise had not been a total waste of time as the drilling provided ‘invaluable information for improving the assessment of source risks on other prospects in close proximity’, while also furthering the company’s knowledge of the region.Nonetheless, some of the results from the test drilling indeed exceeded the company’s expectations, with two zones having average porosities of 24 per cent, with evidence of good permeability.The company and its partners are also on track to begin the drilling of the Kabeljou (2714/6-1) well in the third quarter of this year. It will be the second well in the company’s four to five well-drilling programme.Chariot Oil and Gas Limited is an independent oil and gas exploration group.The group currently holds licences covering eight blocks in Namibia through its wholly-owned subsidiary Enigma Oil and Gas Exploration (Pty), and one block in Mauritania through its wholly-owned subsidiary Chariot Oil and Gas Investments (Mauritania), all of which are offshore. All of these blocks are currently in the exploration phase. – Nampa
