04 September 2013, Maputo — The Norwegian state owned hydrocarbon company Statoil has announced that it has plugged and abandoned a Mozambican offshore exploration well after no oil or gas was found.
The well is the Buzio-1 well in Offshore Area Two in the Rovuma Basin off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado, near the gigantic natural gas discoveries made by operators ENI (of Italy) and Anadarko (of the United States), in Areas Four and One respectively.
The Buzio-1 well was drilled to a depth of 3,333 metres in water depths of 1,534 metres.
This is the second exploration well in the Rovuma Basin abandoned by the company in less than two months.
Statoil is the operator in Offshore Area Two 2, with a 40 per cent holding. Its partners are INPEX of Japan (with a 25 per cent stake), the London-based Tullow Oil (25 per cent) and the publicly owned Mozambican Hydrocarbon Company ENH (10 per cent).
According to Tullow’s Angus McCoss, “having encountered hydrocarbons with the Cachalote-1 well, we have acquired valuable information from the Buzio-1 dry hole. We will now combine the data from both offshore Mozambique wells with our extensive seismic in this licence area and determine our next steps”.
The Cachalote-1 well in Area Two discovered a gas bearing reservoir, but the initial exploration suggested that it was unlikely to be commercially viable.