Project Profile
Value: US$200 million
Location: Morondava Basin, Madagascar
Depth: 0–30 metres
Oil Reserves: 9,800 million bbl
Startup Year: 2018
Bemolanga is a large oil sands deposit in the onshore Morondava Basin of Madagascar. The deposit was discovered in the early 1900s but was known to locals for centuries. The field is located north of the Tsimiroro heavy oil field and east of the town of Morafenobe. The field is at 0–30m depth and about 120km from the coast.
An American entity based in Houston Texas (USA), MADAGASCAR OIL (MOIL), began further investigation in 2006 and the French company TOTAL joined the project in 2008. The field has 16.6 billion barrels of oil in place (P-50) and 9.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil (2P+3P). The source rocks for the Bemolanga oil is believed to be the Karoo formation of the Middle Sakamena Shale. The field was lifted to its present near surface location due to the renewed uplifting and seaward tilting of the island of Madagascar, which started in Late Cretaceous (Turonian) and continued throughout the Cenozoic era.
Thirteen wells and over 500 core-holes were drilled from the 1950s to the early 1980s. The hydrocarbons are found in the Isalo and Amboloando formations over an area of approximately 400 sq km. The prospective surface mining area is defined by wherever there is less than 40m depth to top oil sand. The average overburden thickness in the surface mining area is around 15m and oil saturation is up to 12%.
In September 2008, Total S.A. acquired a 60% interest and operatorship of Bemolanga. It agreed a 2 year program to drill 130 additional core wells at a cost of US$200 million. Total began its own field work in mid 2009, with the start-up of commercial production planned for 2018. If development of the field is successful, it is expected that 2.5 billion barrels (400,000,000 m3) of recoverable resources will be developed to produce 180,000 barrels per day (29,000 m3/d) of oil for more than 30 years.
Operators:
Total: 60% interest
Madagascar Oil (MOIL): 40% interest