Eni strikes oil in Mexico

MILAN, July 12, 2017 – Eni has completed drilling its Amoca-3 well offshore Mexico, making a significant discovery, the Italian major announced Wednesday.

The well was drilled to a total depth of 4,330 metres, reaching 410 metres of net oil pay. This latest discovery was made in Pliocene sandstones and is reported to have API gravities of 25-27 degrees. The company has temporarily halted flows through the well, but plans to bring it back into production at a later date.

The third well drilled in Contract Area 1, Amoca-3 has allowed Eni to raise its resource estimates for the reservoir to 1 billion boe in place, and to 1.3 billion boe for the entire block.

“We are very pleased with the results of our exploration and appraisal campaign in Mexico, which demonstrates the validity of our design-to-cost exploration approach,” CEO Claudio Descalzi said in a company statement.

Based on the results from this drilling campaign, the company will submit a proposal to the Mexican authorities develop the block at an accelerated pace. Eni aims to bring Amoca on stream by 2019, eventually reaching a production plateau of 30,000-50,000 bopd.

“It is an ideal project in this low oil price environment. Eni’s objective is to become the first international company to establish operating production in Mexico,” Descalzi said.

This discovery concludes Eni’s current exploration of the Amoca field. The company will next begin appraisal drilling in Contract Area 1’s Miztón prospect.

Eni’s success was announced just hours after Talos Energy reported on its own discovery offshore Mexico, in Block 7’s Zama prospect.

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