Dana Petroleum, an oil and gas exploration and production company, has completed drilling operations on the Manatee-1 exploration well in the Bakassi West block in Cameroon.
The well is operated by Dana Petroleum with 55% interest, and SDX Energy, an exploration and production company with assets in Egypt & Cameroon, that holds 35% working interest (38.89% paying interest) in the concession.
The Manatee-1 well, which is located in shallow water in the prolific Niger Delta Basin, offshore Cameroon, was spud on March 2 using the Paragon M825 jack-up rig, reached TD of 1,447 meters on March 27.
The well intersected 26 metres of gas bearing section of varying quality throughout the wellbore. SDX Energy noted that wellbore conditions did not permit the acquisition of a full suite of logging tools in the deeper sections of the hole which makes the analyses of these lower intervals inconclusive at this time. Additional technical work will be completed with the samples and material collected from the well to improve the understanding of their quality in a post well analyses, the company added.
Commenting on the results, SDX Energy CEO Paul Welch , said: “Whilst we are disappointed not to have made an oil discovery, we recognized the risks associated with exploration wells of this kind. The secondary objective was to see whether we could make a commercially viable gas discovery. At this stage it is too early to quantify the Manateee-1 gas potential and our technical team will be working closely with our partners to evaluate the well results to determine if the gas volumes on the block have commercial potential.
“Positively, the Block contains a further 12 prospects and leads which have been significantly de-risked by the Manatee-1 well results. We will use the information obtained from this well to improve our understanding of the Bakassi West Block so that we can sit down with our partners and the relevant authorities to discuss the next steps.”