Masirah Oil Limited (MOL), which holds a 100 per cent interest in Block 50 offshore Oman’s eastern seaboard, announced on Thursday the successful spudding of an appraisal well targeting the promising Yumna oil field off Masirah Island.
The Yumna oil field, previously known as GA South Field, is home to the GA South #1 discovery, which was made in early 2014. At the time, Masirah Oil announced a first-ever hydrocarbon find in the 17,000 sq km concession off the Sultanate’s east coast.
A second exploration well drilled in the concession had successfully reached the well target depth of more than 3,000 metres into the Cambrian formation. During a 48-hour test, hydrocarbons were flowed to the surface and the well achieved a restricted flow rate of 3,500 barrels per day of light oil of high quality without water production from a sandstone reservoir of excellent quality.
The Yumna 1 well is being drilled to appraise the Yumna oil field, Masirah Oil Limited said in a press statement. Early production testing will commence in January 2020 with oil produced during the field appraisal field planned for temporary storage on an Aframax tanker (of less than 120,000 metric ton capacity).
Last November, Masirah Oil named Foresight Offshore Drilling Limited as the winner of a drilling rig contract for the Yumna-1 well appraisal. The jack-up Foresight Driller IX will be deployed in the drilling of the appraisal well.
The spudding of the appraisal well marks the start of a concerted effort to harness the Yumna oil field’s hydrocarbon potential. Block 50 is estimated to have gross mean unrisked prospective resources of 4,743 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe). The company had earlier targeted first oil production from the Block before the end of 2019.
Singapore-based oil field technology firm Rex International Holding Limited holds an effective interest of 92.65 per cent in Masirah Oil through its indirect wholly-owned subsidiary, Rex Oman Ltd. Rex holds proprietary ownership of Rex Virtual Drilling (RVD), a revolutionary technology billed as capable of locating liquid hydrocarbon presence using analysing of conventional seismic data. The unique technology was deployed in the successful unearthing of the GA South discovery.
Petroci, the National Oil Company of the Ivory Coast and Schroder & Co Banque SA, also hold shareholding interests of 2.35 per cent and 5 per cent in Masirah Oil respectively.
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