Mediocre week for UK exploration

This week saw a disappointing well result in Rowallan and a mediocre result in Verbier.

Rowallan
The keenly watched wildcat drilled at the Rowallan prospect "was not found to be hydrocarbon-bearing”. The 22/19c-7 well was targeting 143mmbbl in a structural fault and dip-closed trap analogous to Total’s Culzean field 20km away.

The well encountered a 182m section of sandstone and shale after being drilled to a depth of 4,641m .

The Dundonald and Sundrum prospects, which are geologically similar to Rowallan, have previously been identified as potential drilling targets in the block but will now be “re-evaluated in the light of the drilling results”, Serica said.

Serica, with a 15% interest in the block, did not incur any costs for the well as it was fully carried following an earlier farm-out. Eni operates the block with a 32% stake, with remaining partners JX Nippon (25%), Mitsui (20%) and Equinor (8%).

Verbier

Equinor (70%), Jersey Oil & Gas (18%) and CIECO (12%) completed appraisal well 20/05b-14 on the Verbier discovery last week. The well did not encounter Upper Jurassic sands as anticipated, and the contingent resources have been revised towards the lower end of initial resource estimates to 25mmboe.

Further upside potential exists in the area at deeper horizons and an additional prospect at Cortina. This will continue to be matured. At 25mmboe, Verbier is viewed to be commercial and development planning will now commence as part of a wider area development plan, which could include the Buchan Area.

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First step in reversion of LNG pricing structures

LNG has historically been priced to an oil price marker. This is because until recently, LNG has been a point-to-point business - LNG was produced in one country and shipped under a 20-30 year contract to a single destination and the LNG tanker would shuffle back-and-forth between the two end points. This underpinned the project financing for construction of liquefaction projects.

LNG prices were then linked to oil as both the LNG producing nations and importers typically had no mature domestic gas market, and hence no price discovery for the gas, but for the importing country, the LNG would have displaced oil for power generation.

Since the genesis of North American LNG, US Gulf Coast exports have been priced to Henry Hub ("HH"), with contracts being HH plus a liquefaction toll. However, buyers are starting to shift to being overweight HH contracts and the last few weeks have seen the first set of contracts away from HH linkage.

On 2^nd April, NextDecade signed a 20 year SPA to deliver LNG from its Rio Grande facility with Shell. The pricing is c.75% linked to Brent with the remainder linked to HH, on a FOB basis. First LNG is planned to be in 2023. This was the first-ever LNG contracts out of the US to be indexed to Brent and comes with full destination flexibility.

On 5^th April, Shell went one step further by agreeing to sell LNG to a Japanese utility with a linkage to coal prices and is the latest innovation to help buyers seeking to diversify risks. This contract is for 10 years and is the first ever coal-linked contract.

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Maria, you've gotta see her!

Wintershall has shut-in the Maria field since February, approximately a year after first production, following poor production performance. It is understood that reserves have been downgraded from 207mmbbl to c.60 mmbbl.

The field is now undergoing testing and monitoring to see how best to produce the remaining reserves the recover the lost reserves whilst managing the reservoir. It is understood that the NPD has to review plans and sign off on the field's restart for fear unintended reservoir damage. There is currently uncertainty on whether the field will start up again.

The cause is believed to be poor connectivity between zones. Water injection is provided to the zone below for pressure support. However analysis is now showing low connectivity between the geological layers in the reservoir, and thus the water injection is not working effectively.

Wintershall started production from the Maria oil field on Haltenbanken in the Norwegian Sea in December 2017, one year ahead of schedule and with 20% reduction in costs. Maria was Wintershall’s first own-operated field in Norway.

Wintershall chose an innovative subsea concept to develop the field. Two subsea templates were installed on the seabed above the Maria reservoir and connected via a pipeline network to the existing Kristin, Heidrun, and Åsgard B platforms.

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Waha gas pricing goes negative

Chart of the week: Waha hub gas pricing goes negative

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Azinor Catalyst portfolio

Azinor has an exciting Central North Sea portfolio which is situated close to existing fields and could act as low cost tie-backs to existing infrastructure.

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Energean targets Karish North

Energean is in the middle of drilling the Karish North prospect with results expected at the end of April 2019. The prospect is located c.5.4km from the Karish FPSO and is targeting 1.4tcfe. Assuming success and a discovery, Energean believes it would convert into 0.4bcm/y.

The FPSO is designed to handle 8bcm/y and Energean has so far secured 4.2bcm/y of offtake. It is expecting to finalise another 1.1bcm/y shortly, bringing contracted volumes up to 5.3bcm/y. Energean therefore has another 2.7bcm/y of capacity and Energean will look to contract this as soon as it is comfortable that it has more upstream gas volumes to underpin this.

Energean see lots of opportunity to sell more gas, led by the privatisation of Israeli power stations in the period 2019-22 which will open up 4.3bcm/y of demand.

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Leveraging off Leverett

As part of the 30th Licensing Round, Zennor picked up Blocks 21/2d, 21/3c-d in licence P2350. The licence contains the Leverett discovery which was appraised by CNOOCNexen.

The discovery has had four wells and may or may not require further appraisal prior to development. The field could be tied back to Zennor's Finlaggan field and extend the plateau.

Leverett has been penetrated by:

• 21/2-2 - drilled in 1975 with the West Venture rig
• 21/2-4 - drilled in 1977 by Zapata with the Norjarl rig 
• 21/2a-11 - drilled in 2015 by Nexen with the Blackford Dolphin rig
• 21/3f-8 - drilled in 2013 by Nexen with the Transocean Prospect rig

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