Eland, Oriental first oil strikes bring over 20kb/d on-stream

London-listed Eland Oil & Gas and Nigeria’s independent, Oriental Energy Resources have both struck first oil on their respective fields, adding over 20, 000 barrels per day of oil to Nigeria’s daily oil production.

Nigerian independent Oriental Energy Resources has hit oil at its deep subsurface exploration of the area surrounding oil producing Ebok field on Oil Mining Licence (OML) 67, located offshore in the southeastern waters of the Niger Delta.

Muhammadu Indimi, executive chairman, Oriental said he anticipates further evaluation and early production from what was initially called the Ebok Deep Prospect.

Similarly, Eland Oil & Gas has delivered first oil from an early production facility at the Gbetiokun field in Nigeria. This is its second field to be brought online their Niger Delta licence, Steve Marshall, an analyst at upstreamonline said in a report

of August 2.

The field in Eland-operated will produce at an initial gross rate rising to around 12,000 barrels per day of oil from two development wells, Gbetiokun-1 and Gbetiokun-3, over the next seven days.

Additional development wells will be drilled later this year to boost output to within the facility’s nominal capacity of 22,000 bpd.

Elands operates modular facility, which enables it to be expanded beyond its current capacity to allow higher production over the next 12 to 18 months, according to Eland.

Output will be transported via tankers between the Gbetiokun field and the main OML 40 export pipeline.

The company is already producing from the Opuama field in the licence where it also aims to exploit the Amobe prospect that is estimated to hold 78 million barrels of resources.

“Gbetiokun will deliver additional cash flow for Eland and we are excited for the development of the licence going forward, with the further infill drilling on Gbetiokun and Opuama and the near-field exploration of Amobe prospect in 2019,” George Maxwell, the chief executive said.

Eland aims to drill two backto-back development wells, Gbetiokun-4 and -5 that are expected to increase output from the field to 20,000 bpd before drilling at Amobe.

Furthermore, Nigeria’s independent, Oriental Energy had earlier this year begun appraising Ebok’s northern fault zone aiming to test the potential of deeper stratigraphic levels, kicking off with Ebok-45 (formerly EDN-1) in 135 feet of water and drilled to a total depth of 9169 feet.

Ebok-45 encountered 170 feet of gross oil pay from two reservoirs with “wireline logging, pressure-tests, strain, and sampling confirming excellent reservoir and fluid characteristics in both horizons”, Indimi said.

Ebok-45 is described as having an additional upside – all the more interesting as it represents “the first significant new oil discovery inside Oriental’s existing development area”, according to Ignatius Ifelayo, managing director.

During the third quarter of 2017, the field’s production averaged 22,300 barrels per day of oil and the field surpassed 60 million barrels of cumulative production.

Other assets operated by Oriental include the undeveloped Okwok field, also in OML-67, and OML-115 abutting the maritime boundary with Equatorial Guinea where prospective resource potential is pegged at 205 million barrels.

Oriental aims now to extend the so-called Ebok Deep exploration concept into the south-eastern part of OML-115, which the company believes hosts the deeper portions of the Niger Delta toe thrust that yielded oil in the Ebok-45 appraisal.