Stena Drilling’s drillship spuds ‘highly anticipated’ well at gas field offshore Morocco

London-based oil and gas player Energean has started drilling activities at a well located on a natural gas field off the coast of Morocco, using a drillship owned by Stena Drilling, an Aberdeen-based offshore drilling contractor.

The London-based firm recently made a move to enlarge its footprint in the Mediterranean region with a new country entry, enabled by partnership agreements with Chariot to take over the operator role at two Moroccan offshore licenses, covering the Lixus offshore license (Lixus), where the Anchois gas development project is located, and the Rissana offshore license (Rissana).

As a result, Energean now acts as the operator and holds 45% and 37.5% of the respective interests in the Lixus and Rissana licenses offshore Morocco with Chariot retaining 30% and 37.5% of the respective interests in these licenses, and ONHYM maintaining a 25% stake in each. Stena Drilling was hired on a one-well firm assignment at the Anchois gas field with the flexibility to drill an additional option well in Morocco.

Thanks to the award, the rig owner’s 2009-built Stena Forth sixth-generation harsh environment dual-activity dynamically positioned (DP3) drillship was slated to embark on its new drilling assignment in the third quarter of 2024. The rig recently completed a special periodic survey (SPS) at Astilleros Canarios (Astican) in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.

According to Energean’s partner, Chariot, the rig has arrived on location, and drilling operations have begun on the Anchois East well (Anchois-3) at the Anchois gas project. The drilling and flow testing operations are estimated to take around two months, with Chariot expected to be fully carried for the anticipated costs of the drilling campaign. Anchois-3 is a multi-objective well with distinct operational phases.

Furthermore, an initial pilot hole will be drilled with the main objective of evaluating the potential of the Anchois Footwall prospect in an undrilled fault block to the east of the main field, which has a 2U prospective resource estimate of 170 bcf in the main O Sand target.

Afterward, a side-track will be drilled to intersect and further evaluate the discovered gas sands in the Anchois field, with a current 2C contingent resource estimate of 637 bcf, in the eastern part of the main fault block of the field.

The next phase will entail the drilling of the deeper Anchois North Flank prospect with an additional 2U prospective resource estimate of 213 bcf, which will also de-risk the nearby Anchois South Flank prospect with a 2U prospective resource estimate of 372 bcf.

Once these operations have been completed, well flow testing will be performed on selected encountered gas sands to evaluate reservoir and well productivity. The well will then be suspended to enable it to be used as a potential future producer.

Adonis Pouroulis, CEO of Chariot, commented: “We are very pleased to commence this highly anticipated well at the Anchois gas field. We see significant upside potential and value from the prospective resources in the pilot hole and main hole targets which could increase the resource base to over 1Tcf and we look forward, on success, to moving towards a final investment decision as quickly as possible.”