MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Rockhopper confirms medium grade crude in North Falklands; FOGL to announce South Falklands results

Rockhopper Managing Director Sam Moody

Rockhopper Exploration one of the four companies operating with Falkland Islands government licences reported last Friday that samples from its recent discovery on the Sea Lion prospect in the North Falkland basin have been confirmed as medium grade crude.

Rockhopper Managing Director Sam Moody was quoted in the British press saying that the positive results “when combined with our knowledge of reservoir quality from logging data, give us further comfort that a flow test of the Sea Lion well will confirm a mobile crude oil”.

MD Moody’s comments last Friday came in the eve of this week’s expected announcement by Falkland Oil & Gas Ltd and associate BHP Billiton of its exploratory well at the Toroa prospect which was spudded Many 31st.

The well in the Toroa prospect is the first in the south of the Falklands amd was expected to be drilled to 2.700 metres in waters ranging from 550 to 750 metres deep.

“The wax content is typical for a lacustrine sourced crude oil and significantly lower than many other producing oilfields worldwide. Furthermore the viscosity, gas oil ratio, FVF and sulphur are all better than we anticipated” added Rockhopper’s MD Moody.

According to laboratory tests the Sea Lion prospect has been confirmed as “medium grade crude measuring 26.4 to 29.2 degrees API”.

The crude has a low viscosity of 6.5 to 6.8 centipoises at reservoir pressure, and the gas oil ratio is 261 to 272 standard cubic feet per stock tank barrel. A typical wax content of 18.4 to 20.8% is present, and the formation value factor (FVF) is 1.16. There is also low sulphur of approximately 0.2% weight.

FOGL was awarded seven production licenses constituting 33,700 square kilometres offshore the Falkland Islands from the Falkland Islands Government in 2002. Then in 2004, FOGL acquired 100% interest of 50,000 square kilometres in the East Falkland Basin.

Through 2005 and 2006, the company followed up its offshore land grab with three phases of 2D seismic, identifying multiple hydrocarbon prospects.

In October 2007, FOGL farmed out 40% interest in its 2002 and 2004 licenses offshore the Falkland Islands to Australian major BHP Billiton for 10 million US dollars. The agreement required BHP Billiton to drill a minimum of two exploration wells within three years, as well as gave the Australian major the option to increase its interest in the licenses to 65 percent and take operator-ship.

In February 2010, FOGL joined other Falklands’ exploration companies, Desire Petroleum and Rockhopper Exploration that are using the Diamond Offshore’s Ocean Guardian semi-submersible drilling rig.

However FOGL and BHP Billiton are looking to contract a deepwater rig to drill its Loligo, Nimrod and Endeavour prospects, which all are situated in waters greater than 1,000 meters deep.