Posted: Sun Mar 09, 2008 11:57 pm Post subject: Re: Drilling for oil to start in Falkland Islands
They have actually already "found" oil there - drilled, brought to the surface, and everything. The main reason why they gave up 10 years ago was because the price of oil was too cheap at the time, and this is a remote area.
Nine years ago drilling began on six test wells in the ocean bed north of the islands.
Five of the six wells showed promising results, although an oil strike on a commercial scale eluded the explorers.
Amid rising costs and the plunging value of oil - which slumped to below $10 a barrel at the time - firms including Shell pulled out and the promise of oil wealth in the Falklands remained just that.
Before exploration stopped, however, scientists proved that the underwater basins around much of the Falklands were rich in source rock, from which oil could potentially be drilled.
[...]
And from the Falkland Islands government:
--> LINK <--
Quote:
1. Six wells were drilled over an eight month period in 1998, using a shared rig on a back to back basis.
2. Technical challenges of drilling in Falklands waters were proved to be far less severe than anticipated.
3. Five of the six wells drilled had oil shows.
4. Most wells found oil within post-rift sandstones located immediately above the main source rock interval, but this reservoir was under-charged as it lies above the main regional source-seal couplet.
5. Live oil was recovered to surface from one of the Shell wells: the oil has an API gravity of 27°, and was from a thin sandstone at 3,000m.
6. Significant levels of gas were recorded in one Shell well from a deep petroleum system.
7. Sufficient was learnt about the basin and its petroleum systems to anticipate success in future operations.
8. Back to back drilling was the one major disadvantage of the FOSA sharing agreement:
» operators were sharing a single rig, with rental rate near the peak of the market, and there was no time available for analysis of well results before the next well had to be spudded;
» the problem was compounded by the fact that the drill sites had been chosen at least six months in advance;
» there was no chance to pick completely new locations, with new play concepts, based on the results of the wells as they were drilled;
» consequently, only a small number of play types were actually tested, and extensive post-drilling analysis (conducted slowly and with the benefit of hindsight) has identified several other play concepts that might have been better options for drilling.
9. New targets are located on better migration pathways than the targets tested in 1998.
10. The geology and petroleum potential of these wells has been summarised by Richards and Hillier (2000a and b).
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 7:45 am Post subject: Re: Drilling for oil to start in Falkland Islands
I think you can forget about any dust up with the Argentinians. I'd be very surprised if they don't get a nice cut of the $$ with refinement, pipelines, logistical help etc. To leave them out would ( IMO) be asking for trouble (assuming there is anything there).
As far as weather is concerned, from what I've gathered the conditions in the North Falklands basin are not too dissimilar to the north sea so probably not too bad to work there but the potential biggest deposits are to the south where it is definately wild and windy.
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:01 pm Post subject: Re: Drilling for oil to start in Falkland Islands
DantesPeak wrote:
Where does it say how much oil the test wells discovered, or is it the infamous barrels of oil equivilent (of natural gas) that we usually hear about?
Click on the Falkland Islands Oil link I gave above. Press "Click image to enter," then at the top, click on "Geology" and then "Exploration History." Lots of information there.
Joined: Oct 23, 2004 Posts: 5914 Location: New Jersey
Posted: Mon Mar 10, 2008 5:06 pm Post subject: Re: Drilling for oil to start in Falkland Islands
Oil-Finder wrote:
DantesPeak wrote:
Where does it say how much oil the test wells discovered, or is it the infamous barrels of oil equivilent (of natural gas) that we usually hear about?
Click on the Falkland Islands Oil link I gave above. Press "Click image to enter," then at the top, click on "Geology" and then "Exploration History." Lots of information there.
I did that and found out that one well produced 3200 barrels per day. I don't see any other specifics.
I don't get how you can extrapolate that to a billion barrel find. Perhaps you can offer some details.
There are a number of very attractive features to FOGL's assets. The licences cover one of only a few large unexplored 'passive margin' basins that remain in the world and there exists very strong evidence for a working oil and gas system. The work we have carried out to date has given evidence of mature oil prone source rocks, quality reservoir rocks and multiple trap types. To give just one example: the 2D seismic survey has shown evidence of a number of oil and gas chimneys. At the same time, satellite images have indicated oil slicks on the surface at roughly the same locations. We plan to investigate this further by taking some seabed cores in these areas. Within our licences there are multiple hydrocarbon plays and we have mapped over 100 prospects and leads with at least ten each having the potential to hold more than one billion barrels. The combined potential of this inventory is more than 60 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves on an un-risked basis. Just one discovery of a moderate size would transform FOGL.
In other words, a combination of the 6 wells drilled combined with a seismic analysis is where the 60 billion barrel figure comes from.
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