Stena Forth Drillship to undertake drilling at Marina‐1 exploration well at approximately 3000m subsea
Stena Forth Drillship will conduct drilling activity at Marina‐1 exploration well offshore Peru. (Credit: Karoon Energy Ltd)
Australia-based energy company Karoon Energy has commenced drilling at the Marina‐1 exploration well located in Block Z‐38 Tumbes Basin offshore Peru.
During the 30-day drilling programme, the Stena Forth Drillship will undertake drilling activity at the Marina‐1 exploration well to approximately 3,000m subsea.
Karoon Energy, in a statement, said: “The Stena Forth was chosen because it meets and exceeds all engineering, health, safety and environmental requirements of Karoon, its joint venture partners together with the Peruvian government regulatory requirements.”
Karoon, Tullow Oil, Pitkin Petroleum jointly own Block Z-38
Karoon subsidiary KEI (Peru Z‐38) Sucursal del Peru operates the Block Z‐38 with 40% interest. Tullow Peru owns 35% interest in the block while Pitkin Petroleum Peru Z-38 SRL owns the remaining 25% stake.
The Marina-1 would be the first well drilled in Z-38 and serves as an important calibration point for the petroleum geology of the block.
Karoon earlier said that the information from the well can be used for evaluating other prospects and leads in Z-38, with more than a billion barrels in gross prospective resources, and in the technical evaluation area.
According to estimates, the Marina prospect has a gross prospective resource of 256 million barrels of oil, as of May 2018.
The Marina Prospect features a large fault bounded structure with targets at multiple levels, ranging from 900m subsea down to 2,900m subsea. The targets are in the Tertiary Pliocene La Cruz to Cardalitos formations.
In 2019, Karoon Energy has executed binding agreements with Stena Drilling and Tullow Oil to contract the Stena Forth drillship for its Marina-1 exploration well.
Karoon Energy managing director Robert Hosking earlier said: “The drilling of Marina-1 is a critical milestone for assessing the prospectivity of the deeper waters off northern Peru, and, on success, could de-risk several further exploration targets within Block Z-38, and Karoon’s 100% owned Area 73 Technical Evaluation Area, potentially providing important future production for Peru.”