Catalog of recent oil discoveries

OilFinder2

Size of discovery: 200 million barrels recoverable
Date: June 5, 2008
Company(s): Hess
Name: Pony
Location: Green Canyon Block 468, Gulf of Mexico
API: No information
Flow rate of test well(s): No information
Estimated production startup date: No information
LINK

Disclaimer: I am not certain whether this is the same area as the Chevron 3-15 billion barrel discovery I cataloged in 2006. According to page 18 of this, the 3-15 billion barrel figure cited by Chevron is in the Lower Tertiary Wilcox Trend. This Hess Pony discovery, according to this, is a Miocene deposit. However, the Micoene is part of the Tertiary, sooo . . . ??? I've looked at maps of both the Chevron and Hess areas, and it's hard to tell.
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Abundance - what a concept!

Keith_McClary

So when can I back my SUV up to this thread and fill-'er-up? car3

KillTheHumans

OilFinder2

Size of discovery: 750 million barrels
Date: June 15, 2008
Company(s): Iranian state oil company (I assume)
Name: Addition to Jofeir oilfield
Location: Iran
API: No information
Flow rate of test well(s): No information
Estimated production startup date: No information
LINK
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Abundance - what a concept!

OilFinder2

Size of discovery: 20 million barrels P1 & P2 (oil only)
Date: June 23, 2008
Company(s): Mediterranean Oil & Gas Plc
Name: Ombrina Mare
Location: Adriatic Sea, offshore Italy
API: 17
Flow rate of test well(s): 900 bpd
Estimated production startup date: no information
LINK
LINK
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Abundance - what a concept!

OilFinder2 · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:22 pm Post subject: Re: 2007

From my 2007 catalog:

HKFarmboy · Coal Joined: Jul 09, 2008 Posts: 16 Location: Hong Kong

oilfinder2, thank you for once again making the point that there are lots of pools of oil lying around waiting to be found.

you now need to spend some more time on the flow rates. and an analysis of flow rates on producing wells and their trend as compared to flow rates on the new puddles being brought on stream would be helpful. I'll even bet that there is some chart porn on this blog that details it out for you.

flow rates have something to do with the decrease in the daily production cushion from 5 mbd in 1999 to 1 mbd, today. which has a direct bearing on the price of oil in an environment where oil is valued in the market based on how much is sitting around in places like Cushing, OK.

anything less than double the gross number of barrels found is meaningless if you can only pump it half as fast as previous fields.

ROCKMAN

OF2,

You're probably familiar with the Rigzone website (rigzone.com). But, if not: Lots of daily (and short) highlights from around the world. There was a good piece on the trend that Kosmo has been poking around in off the African west coast.

OilFinder2

@HKFarmboy -

As you can see from my listings in this thread, I do post flow rates whenever they're available.

One other thing I've noticed in doing this is, flow rates of exploration wells do not necessarily tell us what the flow rates of production wells will be (at least for offshore stuff). The one I posted above is a perfect example:

JBinKC · Heavy Crude Joined: Aug 14, 2004 Posts: 251

RE Jubilee

The rumor has it the Jubilee field and Teak prospect are connected. Mahogany 3 is also going to drill deeper potential fan. Odum also have been upgraded to 100 mil BBls recoverable.

On the flow rate test. They didn't test the entire net pay and extrapolated a number.

I also noticed you have not included finds in the Butiaba region of Uganda. So far the drilling campaign have resulted in 100% success so far. The area has well over a billion bbls in collective reserve potential.

ROCKMAN

OF2 ,

It's not that they use different test equipment but what the goals are. Initial testing is actually done at different rates. Essentially different chokes are used to deliver different rates. As rates vary so does the pressure drop. Higher rates = lower flowing pressures. Lower pressures = more dissolved gas breakout from the oil. The production system is designed as a compromise between different physical realities.

The bottom line: avoid using initial test data as a measure of production rate expectations. The field IP rates could be significantly lower or higher. Making it more complicated individual well productivty can vary quit a bit. Even worse they may plan to drill X number of wells from which they expect Y daily production and then Mother Nature sticks her finger in your eye as a number of those planned development wells end up as dry holes. My worst personal experience with a field was when the exploration boys said they had 25 million bo and 120 billion cfg. MY first 5 wells off the platform were failures and reserves dropped to 2 million bo and 25 bcfg. Which explains why I don't beleive anyone who says there are are amount of reserves recoverable from an area that hasn't even been drilled. I am a career development geologist and all of us can tell when an exploration geologist is lying about his reserve target: his lips are moving.

ROCKMAN

Jbin,

I read a press release stating the current interpretation was that both fields are part of the same giant submarine fan of sediment. That doesn't necessarially mean the reservoirs are continuous over the entire area but it does increase the probabilty of additional reservoirs existing in the immediate area.

That rig zone artical also highlighted how unexplored this general area of offshore Africa is. Due to war some areas haven't seen drilling in over 20 years.

ROCKMAN

Just a couple of points:

Jack appraisal well currently drilling.

And for using test rates like 2500 bopd to imply utlimately project prod rates or wells required is pointless. I'll spare the details but the advertised rates can be grossly low or high to the ultimate potential. Not enough room here to go into the reservoir or production engineering details. Same goes for ultimate recovery vs. inplace reserves. There is no good rule of thumb. Even when a field is completely drilled up and online it's possible to be off 20% to 30% off in either direction.

OilFinder2

OilFinder2 · Last edited by OilFinder2 on Tue Jul 15, 2008 8:53 pm; edited 1 time in total

Size of discovery: 220 million barrels recoverable, 1.1 billion barrels OIP
Date: July 13, 2008
Company(s): Iranian national oil company, I assume
Name: No name given
Location: Khuzestan, Iran
API: 33
Flow rate of test well(s): No information
Estimated production startup date: No information
LINK
LINK
LINK

EDIT: Added API from new link (rigzone).
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Abundance - what a concept!