Azinam Limited, the Seacrest Capital-backed South West African oil exploration company, announced on Friday that the Ocean Rig Poseidon has been mobilised to drill the Prospect S Well in Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 71, offshore Namibia.

Ocean Rig Poseidon mobilised to drill prospect well offshore Namibia

The Ocean Rig Poseidon, a sixth generation deep water drillship, is expected on location in the next 24 hours with spud anticipated to occur shortly thereafter. The partners in PEL 71 (Chariot Oil & Gas (Operator and 65%), Azinam (20%), NAMCOR (10%) and Ignitus Oil & Gas (5%)) estimate that drilling will take approximately 40 days.

The well has been strategically designed to test multiple zones including Aptian, Albian and Cenomanian-Turonian stacked targets within an overall structural closure. The total gross mean prospective resources is 708mmbls, according to Azinam’s most recent Competent Persons Report by Lloyds Register in September 2018.

In addition to Prospect S, there is considerable follow-on potential within PEL 71 in several analogous adjacent structural closures all of which are clearly defined on 6,100km² of high quality broadband 3D seismic data.

Daniel McKeown, Managing Director of Azinam Limited, commented: “We are delighted to announce the mobilisation of the Ocean Rig Poseidon as we approach drilling on Prospect S, the first well of our multi-well, multi-year drilling programme. I look forward to providing further updates on our operations on Prospect S as drilling progresses, as well as across the wider Azinam portfolio. Azinam is unique in this highly prospective part of the Southern African Atlantic Margin due to our licence footprint, G&G database and the scale of our drilling plans. We’re delighted to start our drilling campaign with Prospect S alongside our partners, Chariot, NAMCOR and Ignitus Oil & Gas.”

Source: Azinam