Namesake: the rockhopper penguin
North Falkland push shifts up a gear
UK junior Rockhopper Exploration said it is moving into the last phase of preparations before kicking off a drilling campaign in the North Falkland basin.
“We have identified a number of targets in PL032 & PL033 on the 3D seismicwhich are sufficiently low risk for us to drill in addition to the Ernest prospect and we are waiting to see what the interpretation of the new 2D over Weddell shows us,” said Rockhopper’s chairman, Pierre Jungels.
The outfit has hired SPD Group to carryout a range of well engineering services, while at the same time Thompson Knight Global Energy Services has been appointed to assist in its drilling farm-out campaign.
The company has also hired RPS Energy to undertake an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on licences PL032 and PL033 in preparation for drilling. The EIA on licences PL023 and PL024 is already in progress.
CGS Veritas has been commissioned to reprocess the short offset 3D data over licences PL032 and PL033.
Following the reprocessing and evaluation of this data and completion of the EIAa, the company expects to be ready to drill two to four targets across its acreage.
These two to four wells, when added to the four wells to be drilled by Desire and its partner result in a potential eight well campaign in the North Falkland basin.
Rockhopper estimates that the acreage licensed to them may contain over 3.5 billion barrels of oil.
