Shell has made new deepwater oil discovery in Fort Sumter well in the US Gulf of Mexico, further strengthening its position in the segment.
Located approximately 117km offshore southeast of New Orleans in a water depth of 7,062ft, the Fort Sumter well was drilled in the Mississippi Canyon Block 566.
According to initial estimates, the Fort Sumter has recoverable resources of more than 125 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe).
The company’s further appraisal drilling and planned wells in adjacent structures could considerably increase recoverable potential near the Fort Sumter well.
Shell exploration executive vice-president Ceri Powell said: “The Fort Sumter discovery builds upon Shell’s global deep-water leadership. Its proximity to our nearby discoveries in the area, and to highly prospective acreage to the southeast, makes Fort Sumter particularly significant.
“These successes demonstrate there is still running room in the producing basins of our heartlands where large, high-value discoveries have the potential to further strengthen our deep-water competitiveness.”
Shell, which currently produces around 600 thousand boe per day, intends to icrease its production capacity from existing reservoirs to about 900 thousand boe per day by early 2020s. .
Since 2010, the company added around 1.3 billion boe of resources by exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.