Tullow fails to find oil in Onyina-1 well near Jubilee
Tullow Oil has failed to find oil in an exploration bid at the Onyina-1 exploration well in the Deepwater Tano licence offshore Ghana.
Tullow Oil has said in a press release copied to ghanabusinessnews.com that it encountered water bearing reservoirs at the well which indicates that it is a dry well with no oil as Tullow had hoped for.
The Onyina-1 well was drilled to explore a large, high-risk, Campanian prospect between the Tweneboa and Jubilee fields in the northeast of the Deepwater Tano Licence, it said.
According to Tullow even though it intersected 49 metres of good quality sandstone reservoir, on prognosis, “however they were water bearing at this location.”
Tullow’s Exploration Director, Angus McCoss was cited in the release as saying “The negative test of the Campanian reservoirs in the Onyina prospect enables further refinement of our exploration and relinquishment strategy offshore Ghana.”
“Good quality Campanian reservoir sands were found as predicted, however the lack of hydrocarbons at this location highlights the high risks of charging and trapping oil in this secondary play.
Our main focus remains on the lower risk primary play, the deeper more prospective Turonian reservoirs, where we have had such outstanding success with Jubilee, Tweneboa and Owo,” he said.
The Anglo-Saxon oil producer Tullow is the lead company in Ghana’s nascent oil industry. Commercial production of oil is expected in the largest field, Jubilee by end of 2010.
Tullow has said that two of the major oil fields in the country contain 2.9 billion barrels of oil and gas.
It says the Tweneboa oil field contains up to 1.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent in oil and gas reserves, and the Jubilee oil field, which has been noted as the largest oil field to be discovered in West Africa in the last 10 to 15 years contains up to 1.5 billion barrels. The 1.5 billion barrel estimate for the Jubilee oil field is a slight decrease in the total earlier estimated at 1.8 billion barrels. The field has 17 wells.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi