Petrobras Colombia Ltd. will drill the Orca prospect in the Tayrona-1 (Tayrona Occidental) block off Colombia's Caribbean coast in 2Q 2014. The company will move a rig from Brazil to spud the Orca-1 exploration well in water about 600m deep off the Guajira peninsula.
Colombia's National Environmental Licensing Authority (Autoridad Nacional de Licencias Ambientales, ANLA) must first approve amendments to the environmental license.
Petrobras operates the 16,000sq km Tayrona block (40%) with partners Repsol Exploracion Colombia (30%) and Colombia's Ecopetrol SA (30%).
The Tayrona block is part of an exploration and development contract that Petrobras signed in 2004 with Columbia’s National Hydrocarbons Agency (Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos, ANH). Repsol bought its stake in January 2011, to complement its long-term operations in the country.
The first well in the block was drilled six years ago and was unsuccessful.
José Ángel Murillas, Director of Repsol Exploration Latin America Region, said Orca is the first well that the company will drill out of its offshore Colombia portfolio.
He described the prospect as having a very large four-way closure, almost 500sq km, in the lower Miocene. The target is Oligocene-Miocene carbonate build-ups on basement.
At the Bank of New York in London on 29 January, Murillas said, "The mean prospective resources for this prospect are higher than 4TCF of gas equivalent and "that makes it the largest prospect in [Repsol's] Latin American portfolio. And it is also one of the most important or largest prospects in the whole Repsol portfolio 2014."
Late last year, Vice Minister of Energy for Colombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy, Orlando Cabrales (previously president of ANH), said two other wells would be drilled offshore Colombia in 2014, in the Gulf of Morrosquillo and in La Guajira.
See:
Petrobras keeps offshore Colombia (16 Sept 2013)
Colombia’s promising future (OE, August 2013)
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