Chevron drills for oil, gas in Lagos

Martin Ayankola and Agency Reports, Lagos - 06.02.2008

CHEVRON, on behalf of Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum, began the drilling of the Aje-4 appraisal well offshore Lagos on Tuesday to further ascertain the presence of oil and gas deposits in the field.

Chevron’s Chief Executive, Mr. David O’Reilly, had said late last year that the drilling of Aje-4 “will allow us to further assess the ultimate reserve potential of the field”.

The well has been designed to fully appraise the hydrocarbon bearing potential of the Aje structure.

The oil and gas field is located 24 kilometres offshore Lagos and very close to the West African Gas Pipeline.

Technical contractor of Chevron commenced the drilling of the well using the Transocean drillship, Deepwater Pathfinder.

Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum (YFP) owns a 60 per cent carried interest in the OML-113 development, on which the Aje prospect lies.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that the well, which is also a potential producer, will target cretaceous deposits as its primary target and underlying Turonian sands as a secondary objective.

The drillship is understood to have been chartered by the consortium for a one-well slot at a dayrate of $515,000.

The field partners will decide on further drilling on the prospect based on results from the Aje well. They hope to have front-end engineering and design for the prospect in place by the second quarter of 2009.