While oil firms race to announce spending cuts, Apache Corporation said on Thursday it had made a significant oil discovery offshore Suriname in South America, its second major oil find in the area this year.
Apache and France's Total struck oil at the Sapakara West-1 well drilled on Block 58 offshore Suriname, a country and a basin neighboring Guyana, where ExxonMobil has found recoverable resources estimated at 8 billion oil-equivalent barrels.
In January this year, Apache and Total announced a significant oil discovery on Block 58, stoking hopes that the prolific Guyana discoveries are extending into the waters of neighboring Suriname. Apache and Total made their first oil discovery in Suriname at the Maka Central-1 well drilled offshore Suriname on Block 58, in which Total had just acquired a 50-percent working interest and operatorship.
"The new license expands our positions in the Guyana-Suriname Basin, a highly favorable petroleum province," Arnaud Breuillac, President, Exploration & Production at Total, said at the end of December, when the French company announced the deal.
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Commenting on the new discovery offshore Suriname, John J. Christmann, Apache CEO and President, said today:
"Our second discovery offshore Suriname this year further proves our geologic model and confirms a large hydrocarbon system in two play types on Block 58. Based on a conservative estimate of net pay across multiple fan systems, we have discovered another very substantial oil resource with the Sapakara West-1 well."
Apache has identified at least seven distinct play types and more than 50 prospects within the thermally mature play fairway, the company said.
Major discoveries offshore Suriname could turn the South American country into an oil producer, the way significant oil discoveries made its neighbor Guyana the world's newest oil producer. At the end of last year, Guyana officially joined the ranks of oil producing nations, after ExxonMobil and its partners began oil production offshore the South American country.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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