SHELL has spudded a highly anticipated exploration well offshore Namibia in one of the world's hottest new oil and gas hunting grounds, following on from the success of its large Graff discovery. Earlier this year, Upstream broke the news that the supermajor's deep-water Graff-l wildcat in the Orange basin had discovered significant volumes of hydrocarbons. The operator quickly drilled a follow-up probe called La Rona-1 - located about nine kilometres to the northeast in Block 2914B -which also discovered hydrocarbons. Northern Ocean's semi-submersible Deepsea Bollsta has arrived on location in Block 2913A and has just spudded the Jonker-1 probe, some 18 kilometres west of Graff, according to marine tracking data from Vessels Value. Shell's drilling schedule for its initial three-well Orange basin campaign is unclear. However, Upstream understands that it will involve a production test on the Graff-l discovery well, and a second exploration well, Lesedi-1. One source familiar with the planned campaign said Shell "will be drilling two further exploration wells Jonker and Lesedi and re-entering Graff to perform a well test". The results generated by the drilling operations will help determine whether the two initial discoveries can be commercially developed. A Shell spokesperson declined to comment.
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