Guyane
WESSEX 1.25%
Mozambique Channel
Northwest Africa
Wessex, in alliance with Northern Petroleum has incorporated Northpet Investments, a company registered in the United Kingdom that holds a 2.5% interest in the Exclusive Exploration Licence (EEL) covering a vast offshore area of Guyane (a French prefecture previously called French Guiana). The licence was renewed on 1 June, 2006 and covers an area of approximately 30,000 square kilometres.
In 2007, Hardman Resources, the original licensee, was acquired by Tullow Oil PLC ("Tullow") who have executed a through re-evaluation of the licence area. In addition to the robust and very large Matamata prospect in the far north of the permit, Tullow have identified deep water stratigraphic leads similar to their Jubilee Field discovery in Ghana, on the conjugate margin in Africa.
There are several features on the acreage with potential oil-in-place reserves in the billion barrel range.
On 11 November 2009 Tullow announced that it had reached an agreement to farm down a 33% interest in this licence to Shell. The agreement includes the option to acquire an additional 12% stake at a later date. Further to this on 8 December 2009 Tullow announced that it had farmed down a 25% interest in the licence to Total S.A. Both these announcements are positive for Wessex, illustrating the potential high value and importance of this exploration project.
Guyane Update
Operations have commenced on drilling the Zaedyus prospect, with well GM-ES-1 in the Guyane Maritime Permit.
On 9 September 2011 Tullow Oil ("Tullow"), the Operator, updated the market on drilling progress and stated "that the Zaedyus exploration well (GM-ES-1), offshore French Guiana, has made an oil discovery having encountered 72 metres of net oil pay in two turbidite fans. Results of drilling, wireline logs and samples of reservoir fluids show that the well has encountered good quality reservoir sands on prognosis.
The objective of the Zaedyus well was to test whether the Jubilee-play, successfully established in West Africa, was mirrored on the other side of the Atlantic. This discovery therefore opens a new hydrocarbon basin within which several neighbouring prospects have been mapped. This result also reduces the exploration risk associated with Tullow’s prospect inventory offshore French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana. An appraisal programme and extensive follow-up exploration activities will now be considered.
The Zaedyus well is being drilled in the Guyane Maritime licence using the ENSCO 8503 deepwater semi submersible. The well was drilled in water depths of 2,048 metres and has been drilled to a depth of 5,711 metres. Drilling operations will now continue and the well will be deepened to over 6,000 metres to calibrate the deeper geology. The well will then likely be sidetracked to enable cores to be obtained over the reservoir sections."
Tullow believes the well has the potential to open up a major new oil province in French Guyane, with a significant number of further prospects and leads identified. Tullow has stated that the Zaedyus prospect has an estimated P10 prospective resource of up to 700 million barrels of oil and is geologically analogous to its Jubilee field, located off the coast of Ghana.
Tullow (27.5%) is the Operator of the Guyane Maritime Permit in which Wessex Exploration holds a net 1.25% beneficial interest via Northpet Investments Limited. The other joint venture partners are Shell E&P France SAS (45%), Total E&P Guyane Francaise SAS (25%) and Northern Petroleum Plc via Northpet Investments Limited (net 1.25% beneficial).
The GM-ES-1 well is located offshore Guyane (French Guiana) approximately 50 kilometres from the boundary with Brazil. The ENESCO 8503 rig is drilling the well to a total depth of approximately 6,500 metres subsea, with the well targeting one of several prospects in major undrilled Late Cretaceous deep water channel fan systems identified from the extensive 3-D seismic survey acquired during 2009/2010.
Link to Tullow Oil website regarding Guyane permit:
Link to Northern Petroleum’s website describing the Guyane permit, in which Wessex
has 1.25% interest: http://www.northpet.com/operations/guyane/
