Drilling of the Gazania-1 well offshore South Africa went well, a report from Environmental Impact Management Services (EIMS) has concluded, but perhaps more attention needs to be paid to the packing list.
EIMS filed its environmental audit report on the well drilling recently. However, it did note the rig guide funnel had been left behind in Norway, rather than packed onboard the Island Innovator rig last year.
EIMS did not name who was in charge of the packing.
At a point when drilling had reached a depth of 676 metres, the blow out preventer (BOP) was run, landed, latched and tested.
At this point, the report said, drilling lost five days. It attributed this to “trying to latch on to the wellhead because the rig compensator failed”. It noted the “situation was exacerbated by the rig guide funnel having been left behind in Norway”.
The operator pulled the BOP to surface for safety reasons, as a result of high seas, EIMS said.
The Island Innovator reached the well site on October 2, in around 150 metres of water. It spudded on October 9. The rig was on location until November 28.
EIMS reported a basic logging suite was run at total depth. Following logging, the well was permanently plugged and abandoned using five plugs.
The last stage posed some problems. While the group was pulling and cutting the casing and wellhead, it saw “significant delays”.
More to come
Crown Energy and Africa Energy have pulled out of Block 2B. It is not yet clear quite how equity in the licence will be divided between existing partners, Eco Atlantic Oil and Gas and Panoro Energy.
There is a light oil discovery on the block of around 40 million barrels. To develop this, the partners would need another discovery to become commercial. Eco and Panoro are applying for a production right on the area in order to move ahead with more work on Block 2B.
The EIMS report gave a positive review of the group’s work at Gazania. It flagged one “non-compliance” from the environmental authorisation and three from the environmental management programme report.