Last April, only one offshore block in Côte d’Ivoire was under negotiation (CI-803). Since then, there must have been increasing activity in the area. During the Côte d’Ivoire country showcase at the Africa Oil Week, Mr. Patrick Danho, Director of Monitoring and Regulation of Hydrocarbons at the General Directorate of Hydrocarbons, showed that at present there are 11 blocks under negotiation in Côte d’Ivoire.
All these blocks are centred around the Baleine discovery that was announced by ENI in September 2021, with a combination of onshore and offshore blocks being considered.
In that sense, it can surely be said that the discovery of Baleine has triggered renewed interest in the area. As recently as July 2022, ENI completed the Baleine East 1X well, the first appraisal well on the discovery and the first well in Block CI-802. The well confirmed the presence of an oil column of about 48 m in reservoir rocks with good properties. The subsequent production test from a horizontal side-track confirmed a potential of at least 12,000 bbl/d of oil and 14 Mscf/d of associated gas from the well.
This appraisal and testing campaign led ENI to increase the in place volumes found in Baleine by around 25%. The discovery is now estimated to contain 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 3.3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of associated gas.
As reported by NVentures last year, the Baleine-1X discovery well targeted Cretaceous sands in the Tano basin: probably a fan complex coming off the Baleine High and draped over the main pre-rift structure there. Vanco held the acreage in 2007 and just fell short of drilling this major prospect, supported by amplitude and a large ‘gas cloud’. In 2013 and 2014, Lukoil drilled the Capitaine East, Independence and Orca fields nearby, finding sub-commercial volumes of oil in Upper Cretaceous sands.
Potential in the west
Even though there is a current focus on further exploring the Tano Basin in the eastern part of the Côte d’Ivoire offshore and onshore areas, the deep-water area of the Côte d’Ivoire Basin in the west also deserves attention. New play concepts from recent discoveries offshore Namibia can be applied directly to this area, as explained by PGS in this article.
HENK KOMBRINK
