AziNor Catalyst announced on 14 June 2018 that a subsidiary of Cairn Energy has agreed to farm-in to licence P1763 (blocks 9/9d and 9/14a) taking a 25% interest. Carin has also agreed to join AziNor for 50% of the sole risk drilling activity on Agar-Plantain. AziNor has signed a contract to secure the Transocean Leader to drill a well in Q3 2018 of which the company is in the final stages of planning. Furthermore, AziNor will retain operatorship for the proposed appraisal well and Cairn will have an option to take operatorship in the future. The deal is subject to regulatory approval. Â   The initial appraisal wellbore will delineate the down dip section of the Agar discovery reservoir with a sidetrack targeted to test the Plantain prospect. The target depth is 1,675 m and combined mid-case resources of 60 MMboe with significant upside of 98 MMboe are estimated. The gross well cost is USD 9.2 million (dry hole) or USD 12.8 million (success case including Plantain sidetrack). Agar has a CoS of 58%. The rig contractor has been identified and a spud date slated for Q2 2018. The success case will take 37 days to drill.   The Agar discovery is located in the Viking Graben east of Beryl field and west of the Alvheim hub. The Eocene Agar discovery was made in 2014 with well 9/14a-15A which encountered an 11 m oil-down-to in high quality Eocene Frigg Formation sands. The well was drilled by MPX which was primarily targeting the Upper Jurassic sands of the Aragon prospect. The Upper Jurassic sands were encountered in the well but was water bearing. The sands are trapped within a stratigraphic trap which was also proven by the discovery well with the reservoir package being mapped confidently on high quality 3D broadband seismic data. Through high quality seismic data and advanced quantitative interpretation techniques AziNor have significantly de-risked the Plantain prospect. If the operations are successful then development options could be tie backs to Beryl Bravo, Alvheim FPSO or a standalone FPSO.   On completion of the deal interest in P1763 is held by Apache Beryl I Limited (50% + operator), AziNor Catalyst Limited (25%) and Cairn Energy Plc (25%).
AziNor Catalyst announced on 14 June 2018 that a subsidiary of Cairn Energy has agreed to farm-in to licence P1763 (blocks 9/9d and 9/14a) taking a 25% interest. Carin has also agreed to join AziNor for 50% of the sole risk drilling activity on Agar-Plantain. 