Deepwater Peru Well is a Dry Hole

Tullow Oil plc reported Monday that the Karoon Energy-operated Marina-1 exploration well, drilled on the Z-38 license in the Tumbes Basin offshore Peru, having reached total depth and having encountered no significant hydrocarbons, will be plugged and abandoned.

Karoon, through its KEI (Peru Z-38) Sucursal del Peru subsidiary, holds a 40-percent interest in Marina-1. Tullow and Pitkin Petroleum own the remaining 35-percent and 25-percent interests, respectively. The partners spud the well late last month with the Stena Forth drillship.

“This is the first ever well in the deepwater section of the under-explored Tumbes Basin,” Mark MacFarlane, chief operating officer of Tullow.

Tullow also stated that Marina-1 reached a total depth of 3,022 meters in 362 meters of water. The company added the well tested the La Cruz and Mal Pelo formations.

“We will now integrate the important well information with the seismic data that we are currently reprocessing and update our prospect inventory for blocks Z-38 and Z-64,” continued MacFarlane. “Tullow is building an extensive exploration in Peru and, while this result is not what we had hoped for, we remain positive about Peru’s wider offshore exploration potential.”

In a separate written statement Monday, Karoon noted the well progressed to plan, on time, within budget and with no safety or environmental incidents. It added that its primary focus remains completing its acquisition from Petrobras of the Bauna oil field in the Santos Basin offshore Brazil.