Cheiron, Egypt’s largest independent oil and gas E&P company, said it has made a new oil discovery in the Geisum and Tawila West concession in the Gulf of Suez.
The company said in its media release that the discovery was made by the GNN-11 exploration well, which was drilled on a fault block east of the GNN oil field development.
Cheiron, through its subsidiary PICO GOS, has a 60 percent interest and operation in the concession, with Kufpec holding the remaining 40 percent. Field operations are managed by the joint venture company PetroGulf Misr on behalf of EGPC (50%) and the partnership Cheiron and Kufpec (50%).
According to the statement, the well encountered 165 feet of good-quality net vertical pay in the pre-Miocene Nubia formation and this is the first time Nubia has been found to be oil-bearing in the GNN area of the concession. The producing reservoir of GNN’s main field is located in the Nukhul formation.
The well was drilled from GNN’s newly installed initial production facility (EPF) and has been successfully placed on production at a rate of more than 2,500 barrels of oil per day, Cheiron noted . The company said that as a result of the new well and the successful drilling campaign so far in the field, the concession’s gross oil production has reached 23,000 bpd, compared to 4,000 bpd before the development of the GNN field.
Cheiron Energy commissioned the EPF for the GNN oil field in the Gulf of Suez at the end of March.
GNN-11 is the fourth well to be completed from the EPF, which is located in the central area of the field and includes a driver support platform, a mobile offshore production unit and an export pipeline of 10-inch oil, tied to existing. Geisum Star production complex. 3 more wells can be drilled from the EPF and these will be used to complete the current phase of the GNN drilling program, Cheiron said.
The new Nubia discovery confirms the exploration potential in the northern area of the concession, according to Cheiron, which said it, along with Kufpec, plans to drill at least three additional exploration wells in the concession area. More broadly, the discovery also shows that while the Gulf of Suez is a relatively mature hydrocarbon province, it still has significant exploration potential, Cheiron noted.
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