KUCHING: Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) has announced a successful exploration and a significant oil and gas (O&G) find in its deepwater acreage.
SUCCESSFUL EXPLORATION: BSP has announced a successful exploration and a significant O&G find in its deepwater acreage – Photo by www.newshotram.com
The successful exploration can be considered a major hydrocarbon discovery which could further strengthen Brunei’s O&G supply.
According to BSP, the field, named Geronggong, is situated in the third Offshore Acreage Area, approximately 100 kilometres (km) from the coast and is located in water that is almost one km deep.
“This is the deepest water in which BSP has discovered hydrocarbons in Bruneian acreage.
“Initial results from the Geronggong well indicate the presence of various hydrocarbon bearing reservoirs.
Evaluation of the well data is still ongoing, but initial data estimates the field could contain several hundred million barrels of oil in place which makes it a very significant discovery for Brunei,” said BSP.
Commenting on the successful find, ECM Libra Capital Sdn Bhd head analyst, Bernard Ching pointed out that it would certainly benefit Brunei.
On the other hand, it would create very minimal impact to Malaysia.
“While everything is to the benefit of Brunei, the discovery is not big comparing with the global scale of reserves.
I don’t think there is much impact to Malaysia,” he responded to The Borneo Post yesterday.
This opinion was shared by AmResearch Sdn Bhd’s O&G analyst, Alex Goh, stating that since the successful find is in Brunei’s territorial waters, Malaysian companies, which are supported by Petronas may not necessarily benefit from it.
Nevertheless, Ken Marnoch, managing director for BSP stated, “This discovery marks the start of a new chapter in the oil and gas industry of the nation.
Deepwater is a challenging arena and extracting oil and gas from such water depths requires different technological expertise.
BSP is proud to take the lead in this new area.” “I am delighted that the ongoing high success rates of near field exploration in Brunei in the last years have been augmented by this significant volume addition in the deepwater,” said Shell’s executive vice president of Exploration Upstream International, Ceri Powell, adding that it was testament to the quality of the technical exploration analysis undertaken within BSP, supported by the latest technologies and knowledge-sharing from within Shell.
The well was drilled by the Noble Phoenix, a ‘drill ship’ which have already finalised the deep water drilling and concluded a successful campaign.
The well is located approximately in one km deep of water.
As a comparison, the depth is enough to fully submerge the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, which is 828 metres tall.
Prior to its arrival in Brunei, the drillship had undergone refurbishment and recertification on their thrusters, riser and blow out preventer (BOP) systems, leading to full compliance with the high standards of BSP’s Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) criteria.
Significant technological and capability advances in subsurface imaging, interpretation and modelling, it had allowed BSP to identify potential hydrocarbon accumulations its deepwater acreage.
This, coupled with state-of-the-art real time monitoring capabilities of the drilling operations from shore, have helped optimise performance and increase operational efficiency and success of the well.
BSP was fully committed to a high level of exploration activity to sustain current production and build future reserves for Brunei Darussalam.