On the job: the West Polaris
ExxonMobil tastes oil at 'mega prospect'
US supermajor ExxonMobil has notified Brazilian regulatory authorities that it has detected hydrocarbons on a deep-water pre-salt prospect that is billed as the biggest yet in the emerging Santos basin province.
ExxonMobil is using the Seadrill-owned drillship West Polaris to probe a prospect that has been dubbed Ogum and, more recently Azulao.
The prospect lies in Block BM-S-22 and is seen as a southern flank of the giant superstructure that has become known as Sugarloaf, the northern flanks of which have yielded Petrobras-operated discoveries such as Carioca, Bem-te-Vi, Caramba and Guara.
ExxonMobil is partnered on BM-S-22 by Hess (40%) and Petobras (20%).
The discovery was made at a water depth of 2223 metres, and the notification was posted on the website of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP).
The partners have agreed to drill back-to-back wells on the block. The wildcats will be located closer to the crest of the Sugarloaf structure than previous probes, testing the theory that the area may harbour a contiguous reservoir of light oil and gas.
Marcio Mello, a respected Brazilan petroleum geologist who worked on the pre-salt concept with Petrobras before setting up his own consultancy, has predicted that Azulao alone will land the BM-S-22 with recoverable reserves of more than 10 billion barrels.
Analysts have floated much bigger figures taking into account other discoveries such as Carioca and Guara.