Romanian Black Sea gets deepwater gas find
A deepwater wildcat in the western Black Sea off Romania has discovered an accumulation initially pegged at 1.5 to 3 trillion cu ft of gas whose commerciality isn’t assured, press reports said Wednesday.
The Domino-1 well is on the Neptun block held by ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Romania Ltd. and OMV Petrom SA, the 51% subsidiary of Austria's OMV AG.
The well, in 930 m of water 170 km east-northeast of Constanta, cut 70.7 m of net gas pay. It is Romania’s first deepwater well. The reports did not give the total depth or depth of the pay interval.
The two companies plan to shoot 3D seismic this year, OMV said. Production, if warranted, would likely not begin until the end of the decade at a cost of several billion dollars, it added.
Alan Petzet | Chief Editor Exploration
Alan Petzet is Chief Editor-Exploration of Oil & Gas Journal in Houston. He is editor of the Weekly E&D Newsletter, emailed to OGJ subscribers, and a regular contributor to the OGJ Online subscriber website.
Petzet joined OGJ in 1981 after 13 years in the Tulsa World business-oil department. He was named OGJ Exploration Editor in 1990. A native of Tulsa, he has a BA in journalism from the University of Tulsa.
