Project Profile
Value: Undisclosed
Location: 75 miles (120 kilometres) offshore, Mississippi Canyon Block 525, Gulf of Mexico, USA
Reserves: unknown
Depth: 7,479 feet (2,280 metres)
Start-up Year: -
Shell made its third major discovery in the Norphlet play in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico with the successful Rydberg exploration well. After more than 10 years of exploration activities in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, Shell continues to lead industry in exploring this Jurassic play. The Rydberg well is located 75 miles (120 kilometres) offshore in the Mississippi Canyon Block 525 in 7,479 feet (2,280 metres) of water. It was drilled to a total depth of 26,371 feet (8,038 metres) and encountered more than 400 feet (122 metres) of net oil pay. Shell is completing the full evaluation of the well results but expects the resource base to be approximately 100 million barrels of oil equivalent. Together with the Appomattox and Vicksburg discoveries, this brings the total potential Norphlet discoveries to over 700 million barrels of oil equivalent. This is the first discovery for the partnership of Shell (operator, interest 57.2 percent), Ecopetrol America Inc. (28.5 percent) and Nexen (14.3 percent), a wholly-owned affiliate of CNOOC Limited. The discovery is within 10 miles (16 kilometres) of the planned Appomattox development and the 2013 Vicksburg discovery (Shell, operator, 75 percent and Nexen, 25 percent).
Operators:
Shell: Operator with 57.2% interest
Ecopetrol America Inc.: 28.5% interest
Nexen (wholly-owned affiliate of CNOOC Limited): 14.3% interest