MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands' rig drilling to the south east of the Islands at Humpback prospect

This is the third out of six wells to be drilled during the current exploratory round

Falkland Oil & Gas Ltd. said on Monday that drilling had started at the Humpback exploration well off the south-east coast of the Falkland Islands. The spudding of the well actually took place last Saturday.

 The well is located on licence PL012 in which Falkland Oil and Gas has a 52.5% working interest. The Humpback prospect is located within a cluster of similar prospects in the Fitzroy sub-basin, which has a total combined prospective resource of over 1 billion barrels of oil.

According to FOGL the exploratory well will test multiple stacked reservoirs within the Cretaceous Diomedea fan complex. The Humpback well is located in a water depth of approximately 1,260 meters and is expected to reach a total depth of 5,350 meters.

The well is anticipated to take approximately 65 days to drill. FOGL is partially carried through the costs of this well by Noble Energy (Licence Operator) and has a paying interest of 27.5%.

FOGL CEO Tim Bushell said that “the Humpback well is the exciting first test of a new geological play concept within the South and East Falkland basins. In the event of encouraging results, we have identified, on 3D seismic, multiple follow-up prospects”.

This is the third of the current six-well exploratory drilling round which started in March at the Zebedee prospect and continued at Isobel Deep, both considered 'oil discoveries'. The companies involved are sharing the semi-submersible “Eirik Raude” rig.