
Chevron Nigeria’s recently announced discovery of 690feet gross hydrocarbon pay consists of lots of gas and a thin oil rim, the Africa Oil+Gas Report has learned.The find was made in the course of the drilling of the shallow offshore Meji NW-1 well, located in the prolific Oil Mining Lease (OML) 90, in the heartland of the company’s operations in the Western Niger Delta.
The Meji NW-1 discovery flies in the face of the narrative that oil majors are not pursuing exploration projects on the shelf in Nigeria.The probe, which was drilled under the purview of the US major’s Global Exploration Unit, is part of an ongoing, intentional search for new oil. The company could do with the gas discovered: its 600Milliion standard cubic feet per day Escravos Gas Processing Plant, is the largest piece of infrastructure handling natural gas meant for supply into the domestic economy.
Chevron has been quite busy with the drill bit. It is currently utilising one jack up (shallow offshore) rig and one swamp rig in a 37 well drilling campaign that is expected to run to late 2027. But the wells in that project, named Panther, are infill development wells meant to rein in natural decline in output and deliver incremental increases to top up the volume.Meji NW1 is clearly not part of Project Panther, but its drilling took advantage of the rig availability for Panther.
Chevron is not in a hurry to appraise this probe, as “the result is not different from most pools in the Meji structure; large gas cap and thin oil rim”, say sources at the NNNPC Ltd, Chevron’s joint venture partner onthe asset. “They are looking for other exploration opportunities”.
Source:https://africaoilgasreport.com