Ensco rig gearing up to drill Corallian’s Wick prospect

Ensco-owned Ensco-72 jack-up rig has been mobilized from Hartlepool to drill Corallian Energy’s Wick exploration well located in Licence P2235 off the UK.

Corallian is the operator of the P2235 and P1918 licenses which contain the Wick and Colter prospects, respectively. Corallian plans to drill the two wells as a back-to-back program using the Ensco 72 jack-up rig.

The mobilization of the rig was announced by Baron Oil, Corallian’s partner in the Wick license, on Wednesday, December 19.

Malcolm Butler, Chairman and CEO of Baron, commented: “We welcome the news that the jack-up rig has now been mobilized and that drilling is on schedule to commence by year end.

“The Wick well will test a significant offshore conventional oil prospect that forms part of the Wick structural complex, which has been estimated by Upland Resources Limited to contain combined, unrisked, in-place P50 Prospective Resources of some 250 million barrels of oil. Gross, unrisked, recoverable mean Prospective Resources for the prospect being drilled are estimated by the operator, Corallian Energy Limited, to be 26 million barrels of oil equivalent. Baron Oil holds a 15% working interest in Licence P2235, including the Wick structural complex.

“Wick is a high-impact exploration well and success here will have a material impact on the value of the Company. Following the drilling of the Wick well, the Ensco-72 jack-up rig is planned to be moved to the English Channel to drill the Colter well, in which Baron Oil holds an 8% working interest.”

Baron Oil entered into a farm-out agreement with Corallian Energy on March 24, 2018, under which the company committed to pay 20% of the first £4.2 million of the costs of the Wick well and 15% of the remaining well cost and other license costs to earn a 15% interest in Licence P2235, including the Wick prospect. The current estimate of gross well costs is £5.7 million and the well is expected to take less than 30 days to complete.

Back in November, United Oil & Gas, Corallian’s partner in the Colter well, said that the Colter well would be drilled as soon as operations were completed on the Wick well.

In a separate statement on Wednesday, United confirmed the mobilization of the rig to the Wick license and added that the Colter well is scheduled to be drilled in 1Q 2019. Colter will appraise a historic discovery that lies immediately to the south of Europe’s largest onshore oil field at Wytch Farm.

United Oil & Gas CEO, Brian Larkin, said: “The drilling of Colter in Q1 2019 will kick off what promises to be another exciting year for United. As well as appraising a historic discovery at Colter, which we believe could hold in aggregate up to 19mmbbls of gross contingent and prospective resources, shareholders can look forward to further high impact activity across our portfolio of late stage European development projects and frontier exploration offshore Jamaica.”

Offshore Energy Today Staff