Africa-focused oil company Vaalco Energy has said that its South East Etame 4P appraisal wellbore offshore Gabon in the Etame Marin permit area successfully encountered oil sands in the Gamba formation.
The well, drilled from the Vaalco-operated South East Etame North Tchibala (SEENT) platform, encountered approximately 20 feet of good-quality Gamba oil sands, with similar reservoir quality as exists in the South East Etame 2H well, Vaalco said.
Vaalco currently estimates gross prospective resources of 1 to 2 million barrels of oil (MMBO), or 0.3 to 0.5 MMBO net revenue interest to the company, present in this newly discovered step out area.
"Operations are underway to begin drilling the South East Etame 4H development well based on this successful appraisal wellbore, and expected initial production rates are 1,200 to 2,500 gross BOPD, or 325 to 675 BOPD net revenue interest to Vaalco," the company said.
Cary Bounds, Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are delighted by the continued success from our 2019/2020 drilling campaign, where we have now successfully confirmed additional resources from the two appraisal wellbores and brought two development wells online above predrill expectations.
"The South East Etame 4P is an important appraisal wellbore and was drilled to further delineate our potential resource base at South East Etame.
"This step-out discovery is accessing new prospective resources that should be converted to 2P reserves by year-end 2020 following the successful drilling of the South East Etame 4H and further technical evaluation.
"The initial analysis shows that this new step out discovery has similar reservoir quality as the reservoir from which the South East Etame 2H well is producing. These encouraging results allow us to move ahead with plans to drill the South East Etame 4H development well."
“We believe that the 2019/2020 drilling campaign has been transformational for Vaalco and set us on the path to achieve our ambitious organic growth plans. The campaign overall has been hugely successful and in aggregate towards the upper end of our internal pre-drill expectations. We have significantly increased overall production with the Etame 9H and Etame 11H development wells that were recently drilled from the Etame platform.
"Both appraisal wellbores we drilled verified the existence of additional hydrocarbon resources that can be converted to proved reserves over time. In addition, we added production from two recent wells at the Etame platform that were brought back online following a subsea repair on the Etame 4H well and a workover on the Etame 10H well."
“We remain optimistic about our outlook for 2020 and believe that we are well positioned to face the headwinds caused by the recent downward pressure on oil prices. We continue to focus on the matters we can control and remain committed to executing on our strategic plan which includes delivering positive operational results while simultaneously considering complementary M&A opportunities, all with a view to generating long-term value for our shareholders.”