25th Apr 2014 08:42
LONDON (Alliance News) - Tullow Oil PLC dropped to the bottom of the FTSE 100 in early trading Friday after the company said it is abandoning its Tapendar-1 exploration well, offshore Mauritania.
The independent oil and gas firm said the Tapendar-1 exploration well in the C-10 licence, offshore Mauritania - the second exploration well in its Mauritania campaign - has not encountered hydrocarbons and the well is being plugged and abandoned.
The objective of Tapendar-1 was to test two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age, said Tullow. At the Miocene interval a major undrilled turbidite fairway was penetrated and encountered excellent quality, well developed, reservoir sands. However, these sands were water bearing at this location.
The deeper Upper Cretaceous target tested a salt flank play, which at this location, did not encounter any sands, said the company. The well reached total depth of 3,752 metres and is currently being plugged and abandoned after which the Stena DrillMax drill ship will leave Mauritania.
Tullow said data from its Frégate-1 and Tapendar-1 wells will now be analysed and integrated into the seismic data previously acquired across Tullow's Mauritania acreage before the next well locations and timings are confirmed. Seismic acquisition in Blocks C-3 and C-18 will also continue this year.
"The Tapendar-1 frontier exploration well was a bold attempt to open a new oil play in this area of Tullow's highly prospective offshore Mauritania acreage which the Group has built up in pursuit of the next Jubilee-type discovery. At this well location, two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age failed to encounter hydrocarbons," said Angus McCoss, Exploration Director.
"Following these opening wells, we and our partners will now pause to analyse the data gathered from the exploration campaign thus far. We will then decide on the location and timings of the next wells which will continue to focus on exploring for conventional oil plays," he added.
Shares in Tullow Oil were trading 2.73% lower at 837.5 pence per share Friday morning, the biggest faller on the FTSE 100.
By Alice Attwood; [email protected]; @AliceAtAlliance
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