Project Profile
Location: Offshore Libya
Value: US$750 Million
Water Depth: 1,600 m
Start-up Year: 2014
The offshore, deepwater Sirte acreage in water depths up to 2,000m, is presently unexplored. It is considered a frontier deepwater basin, and a potential extension of the onshore Siret basin.
BP was forced to shelve plans for onshore drilling in Libya in 2014, but continued to plan probes in offshore locations, such as the Sirte, where operations were likely to be less dangerous. As of 2013,
In 2013, BP had several Libyan offshore probes lined up targeting the Sirte through until 2017: Abushoka, Trelia, Aurata, Sfen, Matseti, and Matsola. However, BP was reported to have lost some US$600 million on its Libyan investments owing to the security situation. As yet, there are no sign of the Sirte probes.
The acreage in the offshore Sirte basin is the size of Belgium or nearly three North Sea quadrants. In total the acreage is more than ten times the size of BP-operated Block 31 in Angola where BP has announced 14 discoveries so far, or more than 2,000 Gulf of Mexico deep water blocks. Sirte is challenging, however, because it is in deep water with seismic imaging issues, and it is 300 km from the nearest well.
Operator:
BP - 20% Interest
Contractors:
IntecSea - Awarded global subsea EPMS
Wavefield Inseis ASA – Provided 3D Seismic survey