The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has issued Shell Offshore Inc. a permit for the permanent abandonment of the WR 595 1S1B0 sidetrack well (API: 608124012401) at the Stones SW prospect in the ultra-deepwater Central Gulf of Mexico. The company has not disclosed the result or final drilling depth of the sidetrack or the WR 595 1S0B0 original hole (API: 608124012400) that tested a subsalt Wilcox play next to Shellâs Stones field. The BSEE approved the permit on 21 September 2018 and the operator planned to begin plugging the well on the day the permit was received, anticipating the work would take seven days. Shell has conducted operations on Walker Ridge block 595 through 100% owned OCS lease G36088 using the Transocean drillship âDeepwater Pontus.â  Shell mobilized the âDeepwater Pontusâ to drill site in late July where the dynamically positioned drillship began operations on the Stones SW prospect, a near-field Lower Tertiary (Paleogene) Wilcox play found along the edge of the Sigsbee Escarpment in some 9,700 ft (2,957 m) of water. Located near the center of the Walker Ridge (WR) protraction area, the prospect area resides roughly 250 miles (400 km) south-southwest of New Orleans, Louisiana, and about 180 miles (288 km) from the nearest shoreline. Shell-operated Stones field, a producing Wilcox oil accumulation, lies immediately northeast of the prospect.  Shell spudded the WR 595 1S0B0 on 2 August 2018. After about a month, the company ceased drilling operations on the original hole and proceeded to plug it back and use the borehole to start the sidetrack on 31 August at a depth of 22,437 ft (6,839 m). The Stones SW drill site corresponds to the WR 595 âHâ surface location in the operatorâs nine-well, N-10015 exploration plan that covers WR blocks 594 and 595. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) approved this plan in June 2018. This drill site lies in 9,685 ft (2,952 m) of water in the SE/4 SW/4 NW/4 of WR block 595. The company scheduled 195 days of rig time to drill and suspend this well, which is designed to spud and bottom in WR block 595. The shallow hazard survey indicates that allochthonous salt is not encountered in the top-hole of the WR 595-H well down to its investigation limit of 6,850 ft (2,088 m) below the mudline or -16,535 ft (5,040 m) subsea. All the nine drill sites associated with Stones SW exploration plan are located to the east and ostensibly in front of the edge of the Sigsbee Escarpment, which means that the wells will probably be clear of the salt canopy.  The Stones SW wells are targeting the stratigraphic section that is correlative to the Wilcox pay zone found around 26,250 ft (8,001 m) in the adjacent Stones field. Discovered in 2005 and sanctioned in 2013, Shell brought Stones field onstream in September 2016. As of July 2018, the field is producing from four subsea wells tied back to the âTurritella,â a floating, production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel. Since coming online, the field has flowed 9.4 MMbbl of oil, 1.4 Bcf of gas, and 613,733 bbl of water through February 2018.  OCS lease G36088 (WR-595) is a standard 5,760-acre (23.31 sq km) deepwater tract that was awarded 100% to Shell Offshore Inc. at Central Gulf Sale 247, held in March 2017. Bidding alone and without competition, the company acquired the G36088 lease with a bonus bid of USD 4,556,719. The BOEM issued the acreage on 1 July 2017 with a 10-year term that is scheduled to expire on 30 June 2027.  Background Information    Less than ten miles (16 km) north of Stones field, Shell tested the Ipanema prospect on WR block 376, likely targeting subsalt Miocene and Wilcox objectives. The company drilled three boreholes to assess the prospect. The WR 376 #1 (API: 608124011900), WR 376 #2 (API: 608124012000) and WR 376 #2 BP1 (API: 608124012001) wells were subsequently plugged and abandoned in January 2018. Although the outcome of this drilling program has not been publicly disclosed, the WR 376 lease (G33375) was relinquished by Shell in July 2018 one year before its scheduled expiry date of July 2019, making the Ipanema wells either dry or non-commercial.  WR block 594 and 595 were part of Shellâs original Stones unit (Contract No. 754306006). They were held by unit operations past their 2006 expiration date, but were dropped from the unit and terminated by government regulators in 2009. Eni and Ecopetrol attempted to acquire these blocks in 2010 as did a combine of LLOG, Houston Energy and Red Willow Offshore in both 2015 and 2016. The BOEM rejected the high bids of both these groups because the cash bonus was deemed below the fair market value. Stones SW is now situated along the southwest border of the nine-block, Shell-operated Stones field production unit. As of March 2018, the WR Block 508 âStonesâ Unit consists of WR blocks 464 (S/2), 507, 508, 509, 551, 552, 553, 596, and 597.
WR 595 001S1B0 (Stones SW prospect) (Shell 100%) in the ultra-deepwater OCS Lease G36088. The company has not disclosed the result or final drilling depth.