Enigma drills first well offshore Nam

ENIGMA Oil & Gas has started drilling its first well in its hunt for oil off the Namibian shore.

The company, a wholly-owned subsidiary of UK-listed Chariot Oil and Gas Limited, started work in its Tapir South prospect, block 1811/5-1, in the Namibe Basin. It is only the second well ever to be drilled in the basin.Chariot said in a statement the prospect has a 25 per cent Chance of Success and a mean unrisked prospective resource potential of 604 million barrels of oil.’In the event of success, the results of this well will significantly increase the Chance of Success on certain of the company’s other prospects within the Tapir Trend,’ Chariot said.’Owing to the additional funding raised last month we can now fully explore the deeper targets within the prospect and we look forward to updating the market with the well results in due course,’ Chariot chief executive officer, Paul Welch, said.The company has chartered the Maersk Deliverer semi-submersible drilling rig for the operation. Drilling and logging are expected to take about 70 days.Welch said Chariot is likely to drill its second well in block Kabeljou (2714/6-1) in the Nimrod prospect in the third quarter of this year.Tapir South (1811/5-1) is located 80 kilometres in Chariot’s northern block 1811A. Chariot holds 100 per cent interest in the block. The rig is expected to drill an estimated total vertical depth subsea of 5 100 metres. This will include extended drilling time to ensure that one of the deeper identified targets is drilled and fully evaluated, Chariot said.’This deeper target is believed to be a carbonate section, age equivalent to the reservoir in recent sub-salt discoveries in the on-trend Kwanza basin offshore Angola,’ the company said.