Chariot books Halliburton for well services in Morocco

Africa-focused Chariot has signed a binding letter of intent with oilfield services provider Halliburton for services on its Anchois gas appraisal well within the Lixus licence, offshore Morocco.

The services Halliburton will assist Chariot with include but are not limited to project management services; directional drilling and logging whilst drilling services; drilling fluids materials and engineering services.

Furthermore, the services will include cementing, pumping, materials and engineering services; wireline logging services; and drill bits and coring services, Chariot said on Thursday.

Adonis Pouroulis, Acting CEO of Chariot, commented: “Following on from our recently announced rig award, today’s release marks further progress towards our planned appraisal well on the Lixus licence, offshore Morocco, later this year.

“We remain on track for drilling operations to commence in December and we look forward to updating the market further as other operational milestones are achieved ahead of drilling”.

Chariot hired the Stena Drilling-owned Stena Don rig for the Anchois appraisal well earlier in September. Drilling operations are expected to take up to approximately 40 days.

The Lixus licence covers an area of approximately 2,390km2, 30km north of Chariot’s existing Moroccan acreage, with water depths ranging from the coastline to 850m. The area has been subject to earlier exploration with legacy 3D seismic data covering approximately 1,425km2 and four exploration wells, including the Anchois gas discovery.

Chariot’s appraisal drilling objectives are to unlock the development of the discovered sands by confirming the gas resource volumes, reservoir quality and well productivity, and provide a future production well for the development of the field.

Another objective is to potentially deepen the well into additional low-risk prospective sands with the aim of establishing a larger resource base for longer term growth.

Halliburton has also recently been awarded an integrated services contract to execute a three to five well drilling and completions campaign for Energean in Israel.