The semisub Maersk Deliverer has started drilling the 1811/5-1 well on the Tapir South prospect offshore Namibia
Located 80km offshore in northern block 1811A, the well is only the second ever to have been drilled in the Namibe basin.
Drilling and logging at the site is expected to take around 70 days and the well is being drilled to an estimated TVD subsea of 5,100m.
Tapir South, which operator Chariot Oil & Gas has assessed as having prospective resources of 604mn bbl, is part of the Tapir Trend where Chariot has identified three prospects on a large ridge formed by a rotated fault block containing the potential carbonate target.
This is draped by deep marine sediments with turbidite sandstone levels forming a stack of overlying targets.
The second well in Chariot’s exploration programme, Kabeljou (2714/6-1), will target the Nimrod prospect. Operator Petrobras expects to secure a drilling unit in 3Q 2012.
One of the deeper identified targets is thought to be a carbonate section, equivalent in age to the reservoir in recent subsalt discoveries in the on-trend Kwanza basin offshore Angola to the north.
