Eni, Italy’s multinational energy company, has announced a big gas and condensate discovery offshore Africa’s Ivory Coast. This marks a significant milestone in West Africa’s upstream exploration landscape. The new find, named Calao South, was made after the company’s successful drilling in the first exploration well in Block CI-501, Murene South-1X. Calao South is believed to hold up to 450 million barrels (about 1.4 billion barrels of oil) of condensate and 5.0 trillion cubic feet of gas. This discovery has confirmed the Calao channel complex’s wider possibilities.
This discovery is supposed to be the nation’s second-largest hydrocarbon discovery after Baleine. Currently, over 75 million cubic feet of gas and 62,000 barrels of oil are produced daily from Phases 1 and 2 at the Baleine field. The start of Phase 3 will take this output to 200 million cubic feet of gas and 150,000 barrels of oil per day. Eni stated this to be a strengthening of Baleine’s strategic significance in supplying Ivory Coast’s domestic energy needs.
Located around 8 km southwest of Murene-1X discovery well in the nearby CI-205 block, the Murene South-1X well is slated to go through a complete conventional drill stem test (DST). This will help to evaluate the production capacity linked to the Calao discovery. Eni jointly operates on the CI-501 block with Petroci Holding, owning about 90% of the operations there. The reserves were found by the Saipem Santorini drilling ship at a total depth of almost 5,000 meters. Following a comprehensive data collection program, a primary hydrocarbon-bearing interval with superior petrophysical characteristics and a gross thickness of about 50 meters was confirmed.
Eni has been active in Ivory Coast since 2015. The oil and gas discovery in the superior Cenomanian sands strengthened Ivory Coast’s position in West Africa’s offshore drilling and energy production industry while confirming the offshore acreage’s geological potential.
