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TotalEnergies and APA drilled the SPS-2 well Keskesi, Sapakara South and Krabdagu. All of
at a location about 4.6 km south of Sapakara these fields are in a specific section of the licence
South-1 (SPS-1), the first appraisal well to test area that lies along the same trendline as many
the discovery. The partners are now focusing on of the finds made at Stabroek, a neighbouring
an appraisal drilling programme to test another site to the west within the Guyanese section of
find at Krabdagu, a field near the eastern edge of the Guyana-Suriname basin. Beyond the trend-
Block 58 around 17 km to the east of Sapakara. line, they have struck out at Bonboni, where they
They have already spudded the Krabdagu-2 found sub-commercial oil reserves in 2021, and
(KBD-2) well and are on track to begin drilling at Dikkop, where they found only water in mid-
the Krabdagu-3 (KBD-3) well with a different 2022, and again at Awari in late 2022.
rig before the end of February. TotalEnergies and APA have divided equity
The partners have made multiple discover- in the Block 58 project on a 50:50 basis. The
ies at Block 58, encountering both oil and gas French major is serving as operator of the off-
at Maka Central, Kwaskwasi, Sapakara Central, shore site. ™

BRAZIL
Equinor to postpone first oil at Bacalhau

THE Norwegian oil company Equinor has “I think all projects have been hurt by
announced that it intends to postpone the start COVID-19 – and not just shipyards in Asia but
of production at Bacalhau, an offshore oilfield in all over the world and also in Norway,” Opedal
the pre-salt section of the Santos basin off Brazil. stated. “We are recovering from that now.”
Speaking during a conference call with He went on to praise Geir Tungesvik,
investors, Equinor’s President Anders Opedal Equinor’s vice president of design, drilling, and
revealed that Bacalhau is now expected to come procurement, for the progress that his team was
on stream in 2025 rather than 2024 as previously making at Johan Castberg, a field in Norway’s
anticipated. section of the Barents Sea. However, he also
He attributed the delay to fallout from the noted that Bacalhau would not reach the devel-
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, saying opment stage until 2025.
that both the project and the global oil and gas Bacalhau is Equinor’s main international
industry were still being affected by aftershocks project. Equinor owns a 40% stake in the field,
from the global crisis. while ExxonMobil (US) and Petrogal, a subsid-
The Norwegian company is still attempting iary of Portugal’s Galp, each own 20%. Brazil’s
to cope with the significant economic shifts state-owned Pré-Sal Petróleo SA (PPSA) acts as
that have followed the pandemic, he explained. the manager of the production-sharing contract
These shifts have greatly increased the cost of (PSC) covering the field.
work at fields such as Bacalhau, where develop- Equinor and its partners acquired Bacal-
ment work must be supported by sophisticated hau from Brazil’s national oil company (NOC)
marine infrastructure of the type built in certain Petrobras in 2016, when it was still under
Asian shipyards, he said. exploration.

Rendering of Bacalhau production platform (Image: Equinor)

Week 07 15•February•2023 www. NEWSBASE .com P9