Pancontinental Oil & Gas NL has announced the Mbawa well, located in Block L8 offshore Kenya, has reached a depth of 2,553m RT (below the drill floor).
The Mbawa well operator, Apache Corporation, has advised Pancontinental that between the last casing set at 1997.53m RT and the current depth of 2553m RT elevated mud gas readings have been seen during some of the drilling. Wireline logs are being run before drilling proceeds further. The significance of the elevated gas readings will not be known until wireline logs have been run and an evaluation has been made.
Operations are continuing according to the drilling plan. The secondary exploration target is deeper than the current drill depth and it is anticipated that this will be penetrated once the current wireline logs have been run and drilling has recommenced. The planned Total Depth of the well is 3,275m.
The drillship Deepsea Metro 1, operated by Apache, is expected to spend a total of about 60 days for well operations.
Pancontinental, which owns a 15% stake in the joint venture, estimates that the Mbawa Prospect has potential to contain more than 4.9 Billion Barrels of oil.
[mappress] Offshore Energy Today, September 03, 2012