Harvest Natural Resources has encountered oil in the wildcat well Dussafu Ruche Marin-1 (DRM-1) drilled in the Dussafu Marin PSC, in the offshore waters of Gabon, West Africa. Harvest operates the Dussafu PSC, holding a 66.667 percent interest. The well was spudded on April 28 and is being drilled to test the potential of the pre-salt Gamba and Dentale Formations.

Drilled with the Transocean Sedneth 701 semi-submersible drilling unit in 380 feet of water, the DRM-1 well has reached a vertical depth of 9,953 feet within the Upper Dentale Formation. Log evaluation, pressure data and samples indicate that Harvest has discovered approximately 55 feet of pay in a 90 foot oil column within its primary objective, the Gamba Formation.

Additional technical evaluation will be required to appraise this Gamba discovery. Forward plans include deepening the well to test Middle and Lower Dentale exploration potential and sidetracking to appraise the extent of the Gamba oil discovery. Harvest will provide an update on the drilling operations in due course.

Dussafu Marin PSC

Harvest operates the Dussafu PSC offshore southern Gabon with a 66.667% working interest. The licencse is surrounded by producing oil fields to the northwest (Etame), northeast (Lucina), east (M’Bya) and southeast (Yombo) along with other satellite fields. The Etame field cluster, operated by Vaalco, lie just 30 miles to the north of and are a direct analog to Harvest’s Dussafu Prospect, and additional structures already identified on seismic.

After nearly two years of thorough seismic analysis and comprehensive planning to identify the most promising exploration drill site, Harvest spudded its first offshore exploration well, the Ruche Marin- A. The drill site is located in 380 feet of water, and the well is designed to test multiple stacked pre-salt targets to a planned total measured depth of approx. 10,100 feet.

Source: energy-pedia