Anatoly Katoshin, Lukoil’s vice president of exploration, said its preliminary estimate of reserves at Independance is about 300 million barrels of oil.
He said that, given a water depth of about 1700 metres, the most likely development option if enough reserves can be firmed up would involve a floating production, storage and offloading vessel.
The discovery well, Independante-1X, was drilled late last year in 1689 metres of water in licence CI 401.
