Noble Energy Senior Vice Chairman for the Eastern Mediterranean Keith Elliot said Wednesday that a typical success probability for oil exploration is around 20%, referring to the company’s announcement for a potential of 1,496 million barrels of Mesozoic oil in Cyprus’ “BlocK 12”, based on evaluation of 3D seismic surveys.
Speaking in a conference call with journalists in Cyprus, Elliot said that the company in the next three months will look at the data trying to define the likelihood for success and that any failure in the key success factors of the process, such as the likelihood of reservoir or the nature of the hydrocarbons, can cause the prospect to disappear.
Asked about typical exploration probability of success, he said “typically, it will be around 20% change of success so 1 in 5”.
Saying that the prospect for oil is still in a very immature stage, he pointed out that the Houston based company is focusing at the moment on the continuation of the exploration of natural gas in Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone.
As far as the timetables are concerned, Elliot said that the earliest the company could drill for oil, would be at the end of 2014, more likely at the beginning of 2015, noting that “oil prospects would take us longer to mature than gas prospects will” and that’s because for oil they have to go deeper and the procedure is more technically complex and needs more planning. The time for Noble to drill, he added, will be as much as 200 days.
Elliot stressed that the company’s primary focus is to explore for gas and mainly to find additional gas reserves to support the full marketization of the recent discoveries in Cyprus. For an LNG plant on the island to be feasible, Noble also sees other viable alternatives like additional wells from Israeli Leviathan or gas from other exploration activities from other operators. He also spoke for the possibility of developing Cyprus gas via a pipeline to Egypt.
Houston-based Noble Energy, which holds the concession on “block 12” has carried out one exploration drilling and an appraisal well that revealed a natural gas range from 3.6 tcf to 6 Tcf, with a mean of approximately 5 Tcf.
Speaking in a conference call with journalists in Cyprus, Elliot said that the company in the next three months will look at the data trying to define the likelihood for success and that any failure in the key success factors of the process, such as the likelihood of reservoir or the nature of the hydrocarbons, can cause the prospect to disappear.
Asked about typical exploration probability of success, he said “typically, it will be around 20% change of success so 1 in 5”.
Saying that the prospect for oil is still in a very immature stage, he pointed out that the Houston based company is focusing at the moment on the continuation of the exploration of natural gas in Cyprus Exclusive Economic Zone.
As far as the timetables are concerned, Elliot said that the earliest the company could drill for oil, would be at the end of 2014, more likely at the beginning of 2015, noting that “oil prospects would take us longer to mature than gas prospects will” and that’s because for oil they have to go deeper and the procedure is more technically complex and needs more planning. The time for Noble to drill, he added, will be as much as 200 days.
Elliot stressed that the company’s primary focus is to explore for gas and mainly to find additional gas reserves to support the full marketization of the recent discoveries in Cyprus. For an LNG plant on the island to be feasible, Noble also sees other viable alternatives like additional wells from Israeli Leviathan or gas from other exploration activities from other operators. He also spoke for the possibility of developing Cyprus gas via a pipeline to Egypt.
Houston-based Noble Energy, which holds the concession on “block 12” has carried out one exploration drilling and an appraisal well that revealed a natural gas range from 3.6 tcf to 6 Tcf, with a mean of approximately 5 Tcf.
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