By Tom Westcott.
Tripoli, 21 October 2013:
The National Oil Corporation (NOC) and Spanish oil company Repsol have announced a new oil discovery . . .[restrict]in the Murzuk basin in the south of Libya.
The find is a high quality light crude oil from the third of eight wells the company is drilling in this block. Repsol said the area, which covers 4,000 square kilometres, has shown “excellent reservoir properties.”
The well is in block NC 115, which Repsol has been exploring with a 40-percent stake. Austria’s OMV and France’s Total each have a 30-percent share.
The discovering well, called A1-129/02, was drilled to a depth of 1,836 metres. According to Repsol, it has produced good oil flows during initial testing, with oil flowing at 528 barrels of oil per day (b/d).
“It is not a large discovery but could be a significant new one because it is a new field,” analyst for Cross-Border Information, John Jack Hamilton, told the Libya Herald. The discovery was made in the Mamuniyat formation which, he said, was one of the most geologically prospective zones in the country.
The Murzuk Basin, where oil was first discovered in 1997, opened up a whole new area of exploration and production in Libya. Considered the third most important oil-producing onshore basin in the country, eleven fields have already been discovered in the area. Estimates suggest that there are two billion barrels of oil in reserves beneath the desert area.
Following these good results, Repsol has said it will continue its exploratory campaign, which began earlier this year, through to the end of 2015. [/restrict]
