Esso France's E&P arm, Esso Rep, is focusing on exploration in the Aquitaine basin as new prospective areas emerge from its Les Arboisiers find there.
Esso Rep is preparing for the future by optimizing the six fields it retained after divesting 12 of the basin's depleting oil fields.
The company ran more seismic surveys on the Lege permit in 1995-96 and drilled a dry hole. Next came a discovery well, Courbey, under Arcachon Bay.
Esso Rep drilled the Courbey discovery from the Cap Ferret peninsula. It flowed 750-2,550 b/d of oil, compared with 1,885 b/d at the Les Arbousiers find. Esso Rep will bring Courbey on production in mid-1997 at 2,000-3,000 b/d.
The company is investigating a geologic trend that extends northwest from Les Arbousiers towards the Atlantic Ocean, said Ronald W. Royal, Esso Rep general manager.
More seismic surveys will be run on the Cap Ferret Ocean Permit and the potential tested at Pegase, an exploratory test 4 km west-northwest of Courbey on the Atlantic side. Esso still has an old processing terminal, Depot Guagnot, equidistant from the wells, Royal said.
Pegase will be drilled as a highly deviated well from shore starting in or after September 1997. The Pegase well will require 5,000 m of hole to reach the Lower Cretaceous oil target at 2,500 m true vertical depth.
If Pegase proves successful, then Esso Rep will drill farther on the Atlantic side. Should all trends turn out favorable, it would run a seismic campaign offshore.
To that end, Esso Rep applied for a permit called Aquitaine Maritime. In 3-4 years it might consider drilling a true offshore wildcat there, Royal said.
Esso Rep spent $19 million on exploration last year with some overlap into 1997. Development spending was $14 million. The same figures are budgeted for this year, possibly a little higher should developments require it.
Copyright 1997 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
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