Africa

Deep-Water Exploraton & Appriasal Drilling, West Africa

Provided integrated engineering and operations team for four deep-water wells, a mix of tertiary and cretaceous plays including the large Mzia and Jodari discoveries and the northern pre-salt, the Ogooue delta extension.

West Africa (Angola)

A team of 8 wellsite and operations geologists consisting of national and expat personnel were placed on a campaign in the Lower Congo Basin (Block 15), overseeing numerous wells on the Xikomba field & Kizomba A, B, C and Satellite developments, which included the Kissanje, Hungo, Chocalho, Dikanza, Mondo, Saxi, Batuque, Clochas and Mavacola discoveries. The exploration drilling campaign went from 1997 to 2006 and the development and production drilling campaign from 2006 to 2011.

This is a deepwater drilling environment, generally in excess of 1000m water depth penetrating soft sediments with low fracture gradients. It included deviated low to high angle wells drilled in challenging environments requiring good hole cleaning and constant monitoring to avoid breakdown of the formation and stuck pipe. The wells targeted deepwater deposited turbidite clastic facies of Oligocene to Miocene age in complex structural traps generated by salt tectonics and diapirs.

The projects utilised the full suite of wireline logging tools including NMR, borehole imaging and formation pressure and sampling tools. Latterly LWD tools have provided full wireline replacement in all instances except for fluid sampling. Ongoing cutting, recovery and preservation of full size soft sediment cores has been critical to gaining a full understanding of the various plays within the Block