Tullow Oil to abandon Tapendar-1 well after hydrocarbon no-show

25th Apr 2014 07:06

It was disappointing news from Tullow Oil on Friday morning, with the company revealing the Tapendar-1 exploration well in the C-10 licence, offshore Mauritania, has not encountered hydrocarbons. The well is being plugged and abandoned, after which the Stena DrillMax drill ship will leave Mauritania. Data from the Frégate-1 and Tapendar-1 wells will now be analysed and integrated into the seismic data previously acquired across Tullow's Mauritania acreage before the next well locations and timings are confirmed, the FTSE 100 group explained.Tullow operates the C-10 licence with 59.10% equity and is partnered by Premier Oil (6.23%), Kufpec (11.12%), Petronas (13.5%) and SMHPM (10%). Angus McCoss, the Exploration Director of Tullow, said: "The Tapendar-1 frontier exploration well was a bold attempt to open a new oil play in this area of Tullow's highly prospective offshore Mauritania acreage which the Group has built up in pursuit of the next Jubilee-type discovery. "At this well location, two targets of Miocene and Upper Cretaceous age failed to encounter hydrocarbons. Following these opening wells, we and our partners will now pause to analyse the data gathered from the exploration campaign thus far. We will then decide on the location and timings of the next wells which will continue to focus on exploring for conventional oil plays."NR