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Drilling get underway on Zaedyus prospect offshore

[Donran]

Drilling gets underway on Zaedyus prospect offshore Guyane
9:30 am by Jamie Ashcroft


A group of major oil companies have started drilling on the Zaedyus exploration prospect off the South American coast which could open-up a whole new oil province.
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) is the operator and it has a 27.5 percent interest, while Shell (LON:RDSB) and Total (NYSE:TOT) have 45 and 25 percent respectively.
But for investors there is an intriguing twist as there are also two junior oil companies sharing a small but potentially significant stake in the well. Northern Petroleum (LON:NOP) and Wessex Exploration (PLUS:WX) each have a 1.25 percent interest.
Drilling is now underway on the GM-ES-1 exploration well on the Zaedyus prospect, offshore Guyane (French Guiana). Here the partners are targeting a 700 million barrel P10 prospective resource. The well is about 50 kilometres away from the offshore boundary with Brazil.
In yesterday’s full-year results statement Tullow said that Zaedyus has the potential to open up a major new oil province in Guyane, and a significant number of further prospects and leads have already identified. Tullow also draws a comparison to its own Jubilee field in Ghana, where it brought the country’s first oil to production in 2010.
GM-ES-1 will be drilled to about 6,500 metres subsea, to target one of several prospects in a major undrilled Late Cretaceous deep water channel fan system.
Bear in mind that Tullow has had an 83% success rate with the drill bit in 2010. Also they are particularly excited about confirming their thesis regarding the South American basins being a mirror to the geology of West African. In their analysis they have identified several "Jubilee Like " prospects.