Surprise Strike: Seplat Finds 19 Million Barrels of Oil and 157 Bcf of Gas in Imo State With a Well That Wasn’t Even in the Plan
Seplat Energy has stumbled onto a commercial oil and gas discovery in onshore Imo State, and the find was not part of its drilling plan.
The company made the discovery with its Aku-01 exploration well under Oil Mining Lease (OML) 53. Seplat said in its latest unaudited earnings report that the find was not in its original exploration programme. Preliminary estimates put the gas at 157 billion cubic feet (bcf) and the oil at 19 million barrels.
“The well is currently being completed as a potential future production well, that will be tied-back to existing infrastructure, supporting early monetization of the hydrocarbon resources,” Seplat said. The discovery also de-risks four adjacent prospects, one of which the company expects to test in the next exploration stage. With five reservoir intervals already uncovered, Seplat now looks to start a second phase of exploration in the field as early as next year.
Seplat holds a 40 per cent participating interest in OML 53, a stake it acquired from Chevron in 2015. NNPC Limited, its joint venture partner, holds the balance.
The find lands as Nigeria works to lift oil production to 3 million barrels per day by 2030 from the current 1.72 million barrels per day, including condensates. The government has been pursuing reforms to attract foreign capital, among them deep offshore tax incentives, more transparent block licensing rounds and a drill-or-drop policy. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, chief executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, said the regulator has approved field development plans worth more than $57 billion in the past two years so projects can advance to final investment decisions.
Seplat’s numbers for the first nine months of the year were strong. Revenue rose 12.5 per cent to N3.8 trillion on improved crude oil sales, and profit before tax climbed by more than half to N1.3 trillion. Post-tax profit rose to N355.6 billion from N146.6 billion a year earlier. Total assets, however, fell 6.3 per cent to N8.2 trillion from N8.7 trillion at the end of last year.
Source: allafrica.com
