Promising deepwater hydrocarbon find on the Guanxuma prospect in the Santos Basin, Brazil.
In July 2018, Equinor announced the 1STAT10ASPS NFW on the pre-salt BM-S-8 Block in the Santos Basin had discovered hydrocarbons, calling the discovery “promising”. The well on the Guanxuma prospect spudded on 29 April and was drilled to 6,600m with Seadrill’s West Saturn in 1,990m water depth. It is assumed to be suspended as a potential oil discovery, since the rig began drilling a geologic sidetrack on 30 July, followed by a third well from the same surface location with the same planned total depth, indicating potential problems with the first sidetrack.
Guanxuma had a pre-drill estimate of 700 MMbo to 1.3 Bboe in recoverable reserves and is located on the same block as the pre-salt Carcará Field on BM-S-8, which is already estimated to have 2 Bboe recoverable. Equinor operates the block with 36.5%, with partners ExxonMobil (36.5%), Petrogal (17%) and Barra Energia (10%). As part of a plan to unitise the Carcará Field with the Norte de Carcará area, both Equinor and ExxonMobil are expected to raise their stakes to 40% before 2019, while Petrogal’s interest will climb to 20% and Barra Energia will leave.
Equinor received a licence to drill up to five wells on the Norte de Carcará Block in early September, in addition to the seven it has in Carcará. Equinor’s first well in Norte de Carcará spudded on 13 September with the Carcará West outpost, making it the first to be drilled by any company other than Petrobras, under the PSC regime in Brazil.
This exploration update is brought to you by GEO ExPro and Drillinginfo.
