Lamu offshore well to be “plugged and abandoned”

Pancontinental Oil and Gas NL has provided an update regarding the Sunbird-1 exploration well in area L10A offshore southern Kenya.

Pancontinental’s in a release dated 6th January 2014had said it was not intending to provide any information concerning the progress of the drilling of the Sunbird-1 well until the well had been completed and it was in a position to provide information that was not considered speculative or incomplete.

However, due to the news media reports over the weekend stating that the Sunbird-1 exploration well had discovered oil and natural gas, Pancontinental provides the following clarification: Sunbird-1 Drilling

The Sunbird-1 well operated by BG Group (“Operator”), using the drillship Deepsea Metro-1, has reached a final depth of 2,850 metres below the drill floor. The water depth is 723 metres.

The top of the Sunbird Miocene Pinnacle Reef was penetrated at 1,583.7 metres subsea.

The Sunbird Miocene Reef has been found to contain a hydrocarbon column, however the vertical extent of the hydrocarbon column has not yet been determined due to the difficulty of assessing wire line logs in the upper section of the reef where there were extensive losses of drilling fluid into highly porous and permeable parts of the reservoir.

Hydrocarbon samples have been recovered for detailed analyses. The full nature of the hydrocarbons will not be known until geochemical and other analyses have been completed.

At this early stage of results interpretation, the Operator has advised Pancontinental that it is not yet in a position to properly and fully estimate the vertical extent of the hydrocarbon column, the potential volumes of hydrocarbons, or to provide an accurate assessment of the nature of the hydrocarbons; nor is it in a position to comment on whether the volumes of hydrocarbons discovered appear to be commercial or sub-commercial.

Recent and current activities include wireline logging, formation and fluid sampling and preparations for completing the well.

It is intended that Sunbird-1 will be “plugged and abandoned” in accordance with the planned drilling programme and industry best practice, meaning that the well will be made safe in such a way that it can be left permanently without further intervention. These measures are designed to ensure that there is no leakage of hydrocarbons within the well, or to the sea floor.

Pancontinental will provide further information regarding the well results and a forward work programme when the fully assessed results have been provided by the Operator in the coming weeks.

The Kenya L10A consortium consists of –  BG Group (Operator) 50%,  PTTEP 31.25%, Pancontinental 18.75%.