Vaalco secures rig for West Africa drilling campaign

Vaalco Energy Inc., Houston, has let a contract to a Borr Drilling Ltd. affiliate to drill two development wells and two appraisal wellbores as part of its 2021/2022 drilling program at Etame Marin Block offshore Gabon, expected to begin later this year.

The contract with Borr Jack-Up XIV Inc. includes options to drill additional wells and provides, among other things, that the rig can be on location as early as December 2021.

George Maxwell, Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We continue to work with our joint owners at Etame on our shared goal of executing another successful drilling campaign that can significantly add production and reserves. Success on all four wells contained within the drilling campaign could result in an increase in production of 7,000 to 8,000 gross barrels of oil per day and significant reserve additions of up to 10.2 million barrels of oil for the two appraisal wellbores that would be converted from resources into 2P reserves at year-end 2022. We are excited to get our next drilling campaign underway later this year.”

Vaalco is operator of the block with a 58.8% working interest following acquisition of a 27.8% working interest from Sasol Gabon SA (OGJ Online, Nov. 18, 2020). In December 2020, the operator acquired nearly 1,000 sq km of new dual-azimuth proprietary 3-D seismic data over the entire block to support the drilling campaign (OGJ Online, Dec. 7, 2020).