Savannah Petroleum PLC, Niger and Nigeria-focused oil and gas company, has announced to discover oil at the Eridal-1 exploration well in South East Niger
Eridal-1 is the fourth consecutive discovery Savannah has made in its ongoing exploration campaign in the R3 portion of the R3/R4 PSC Area in the Agadem Rift Basin (ARB), South East Niger.
Commenting on the result, Andrew Knott, CEO of Savannah Petroleum, said, “Eridal-1 maintains our 100 per cent exploration success record and marks our fourth discovery in the R3 East Area.”
“We believe this has contributed meaningful oil resource additions to support the development of our proposed EPS. I would like to thank our subsurface team, along with our oil service company partners, for the continued delivery of a safe and successful campaign which remains significantly ahead of time and budget expectations,” Knott added.
The well has encountered a total estimated 13.6mn of net oil-bearing reservoir sandstones in the E1 reservoir unit within the primary Eocene Sokor Alternances objective. Wireline logs indicate the reservoir properties to be good quality and the available data indicates light oil consistent with Savannah’s discoveries to date, and in line with offset wells and the depth/API trend observed across the basin. Oil samples from the E1 reservoir unit have been taken and returned to the surface using wireline testing equipment.
Savannah said that the well was drilled by the GW 215 Rig to a total measured depth of 2,542 meters and encountered the main objective targets at, or near, their proposed depths.
“The well took a total of 14 days to reach target depth, and all operations are expected to be completed within 23 days of spud. This compares with a pre-drill expectation of 22 days to reach target depth and 30-35 days to complete all drilling operations. No significant geological or drilling hazards were encountered,” said the company.
Following the successful results of the four exploration wells drilled to date on the R3 East area, Savannah has elected to exercise the second of the six individual options it has under contract with Great Wall Drilling Company Niger SARL. The GW 215 rig will now mobilise to the Zomo-1 well site, located on the R3 portion of the R3/R4 PSC Area 12km from Eridal-1, where it will prepare to spud the Zomo-1 exploration well. Following the exercise of this option, Savannah will continue to have options for a further four wells, each of which can be exercised individually at Savannah’s discretion.
“The Zomo-1 well site preparation is in the final stages of completion and is on schedule to accept the rig following demobilisation from the Eridal-1 well site. The move is anticipated to take between 10-15 days and the company will provide an update upon spud of the well,” the company added.
The well is designed to evaluate potential oil pay in the Eocene Sokor Alternances as the primary target.
