Chariot boasts ‘tremendous outcome’ of Moroccan offshore gas project

Africa-focused energy company Chariot has made what it says is a significant gas discovery at its Anchois well located in the Lixus licence offshore Morocco.

Chariot has a 75 per cent interest and operatorship of Lixus licence in partnership with the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) which holds a 25 per cent interest. The well was drilled using the Stena Don semi-submersible rig, which arrived in Morocco in December 2021.

As informed by Chariot on Monday, the Anchois-2 well has been drilled to a total measured depth of 2,512m by the Stena Don drilling rig in 381m of water. Furthermore, a comprehensive evaluation of the well has been undertaken through wireline logging, including petrophysical evaluation, subsurface formation testing including reservoir pressures and gas sampling, sidewall cores and well bore seismic profiles.

According to Chariot, preliminary interpretation of the data confirms the presence of significant gas accumulations in the appraisal and exploration objectives of the Anchois-2 well with a calculated net gas pay totalling more than 100m, compared to 55m in the original Anchois-1 discovery well.

In the appraisal target, gas sand B has a calculated total net gas pay of more than 50m in two stacked reservoirs of similar thickness. The upper reservoir is a continuation of a reservoir drilled in the original discovery well, Anchois-1, with the lower reservoir being newly identified.

In exploration targets, gas sands C, M & O were successfully encountered with multiple gas-bearing intervals across a gross interval of 250m measured distance with no water-bearing reservoirs identified, materially exceeding pre-drill expectations.

Previously discovered gas sand A was not targeted in the Anchois-2 well, due to the intention of evaluating it in the subsequent Anchois-1 re-entry operations, however, the Anchois-2 well encountered gas-bearing sands at this level providing important additional subsurface data. High-quality reservoirs were encountered in all gas sands.

Chariot added that further analysis will be undertaken to fully understand the positive implications on gas resources within the expanded Anchois field and the scale of the potential gas development. The analysis will also be undertaken to de-risk numerous additional material exploration prospects within the Lixus licence area with similar seismic attributes to the Anchois discovery now considered to be low risk.

Adonis Pouroulis, Acting CEO of Chariot, commented: “I am delighted to announce that Chariot, as well as conducting a successful appraisal well operation, has made a significant gas discovery at the Anchois-2 well which materially exceeds our expectations. We continue to conduct further analysis on the data collected from the well, but as it stands, we believe the result is transformational for the company.”

Chariot will now suspend the well for potential future re-entry and completion as a production well in the development of the field.

The Stena Don rig will then move to the Anchois-1 gas discovery well to perform re-entry operations with the objectives of assessing the integrity of the previously drilled well, and if successful, providing a future potential production well for the development of the field.

Pouroulis further added: “This is a tremendous outcome and I would like to thank ONHYM, our partners on the licence, and everyone involved for their invaluable support, which enabled the well to be drilled safely, successfully and on time during a time of significant operational and logistical challenges posed by the current pandemic.

“With the recently announced key terms of gas offtake with a prominent international energy group, interest from two highly regarded institutional lenders to provide debt finance, an ongoing collaboration with a leading constructor of offshore gas projects and now this successful gas well result, the Anchois project is getting closer to helping provide a clean transitional fuel to support Morocco’s industrial and economic growth.”