PXP Energy Corp. and its foreign counterparts have started drilling a well in its offshore exploration project in Peru. According to the Pangilinan-led company, its partner Karoon Gas Australia Ltd. on Tuesday reported the commencement of the drilling of the Marina-1 exploration well located in Block Z-38 Tumbes Basin. “The drilling operation is estimated to take 30 days and shall drill to approximately 3,000 meters subsea,” the Australian firm said. The Marina prospect will be the first well to be drilled in Block Z-38, which has a gross prospective resource best estimate of 256 million barrels of oil. Early this month, Karoon said the drillship Stena Forth arrived in the Port of Callao in Peru’s capital Lima which, according to the company, is “a state-of-the-art drillship with an exceptional record of drilling wells worldwide, successfully and incident free.” It added that the Stena Forth was chosen because it meets and exceeds all engineering, health, safety and environmental requirements of Karoon, its joint venture partners, and the Peruvian government’s regulatory requirements. The Tumbes Basin has a proven working petroleum system and evidence indicates the prospects in the Peru service contract are accessing the same source rocks as the giant onshore Talara Basin fields.
