Wintershall Dea Makes Major Oil Discovery Offshore Mexico

Wintershall Dea has announced a “major” oil discovery on its Kan prospect in Block 30, offshore Mexico.

Based on preliminary estimates, the find, which is located in shallow waters of the Cuenca Salina in the Sureste Basin, may contain 200 to 300 million barrels of oil equivalent in place, according to a statement posted on Wintershall Dea’s website.

Kan is the first of two commitment wells of Block 30, the company highlighted in the statement, adding that the Kan prospect is located within a zone of several Miocene discoveries “including the world class Zama discovery and the Polok and Chinwol discoveries”.

The Kan well, drilled by the Borr Ran rig, reached a total depth of 3,317 meters and found more than 170 meters of net pay sands of Upper Miocene with good petrophysical properties and high-quality oil, Wintershall Dea noted in the statement.

Wintershall Dea holds a 40 percent operated interest in Block 30, with Harbour Energy and Sapura OMV each holding a 30 percent stake. The Block 30 consortium will evaluate the “extensive” subsurface data collection in order to prepare the Kan discovery appraisal plan, Wintershall Dea outlined in the statement.

“This important discovery at Wintershall Dea’s first own-operated exploration well offshore Mexico is a great success”, Hugo Dijkgraaf, Wintershall Dea’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive Board member responsible for global exploration, said in a company statement.

“It was one of the most contested blocks of Mexico’s bid round 3.1 back in 2018. The successful Kan discovery confirms the attractiveness of Block 30, complementing Wintershall Dea’s outstanding Mexican license portfolio,” he added.

“It is a significant step to extending our footprint in Mexico contributing to the development of a potential new hub in the shallow waters of the Sureste Basin”, Dijkgraaf continued.

Martin Jungbluth, the Managing Director of Wintershall Dea in Mexico, said, “the discovery in Block 30 is the next important milestone for Wintershall Dea in Mexico”.

“From our strong market position, with our value accretive projects in the exploration and development phase as well as our current production projects, we look forward to contributing to the further development of the Mexican energy sector,” Jungbluth added.

In a separate statement posted on its website, Harbour Energy said it was pleased to note operator Wintershall Dea’s announcement that the Kan-1 exploration well has made an oil discovery in Block 30.

“The Block 30 partners will now evaluate the well data collected and put together a proposed plan to appraise the discovery,” Harbour Energy said in the statement.

In a media roundtable statement posted on its site, Wintershall Dea dubbed Kan as a “significant” oil discovery and noted that the company reached further milestones in Mexico in the past quarter.

The company highlighted in the roundtable that it submitted, with its partners, a development plan for the “strategically significant” Zama Project and that it completed the acquisition of a 37 percent stake in the producing Hokchi Block offshore Mexico.

Wintershall Dea described Zama was one of the largest shallow water discoveries in the world in recent decades in the statement, adding that the asset is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak.

“These are important developments - for the projects, for Wintershall Dea, and for Mexico and the country’s energy supply”, Wintershall Dea CEO Mario Mehren said in the roundtable statement.

Wintershall Dea announced the Zama development plan submission on March 24. A final investment decision for the asset is targeted in the next year after the front-end engineering design studies have been finalized, when cost and schedule risks have been mitigated to the appropriate level, and with the major contracts ready to be awarded, Wintershall stated in the announcement.

The Hokchi block acquisition completion was announced by Wintershall Dea on March 31. In that announcement, the company noted that the block represents a producing asset that fully meets Wintershall Dea’s strategic requirements, “also in terms of efficiency and emissions”.

“It currently produces circa 27,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day gross, making it one of the fields with the highest production rate among those operated by privately led companies in Mexico,” Wintershall Dea said in a company statement on March 31.

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