More than 90 million years ago, when the land mass of Pangaea began separating into the continents we now call South America and Africa, the earth may have produced a lucrative farewell gift: huge oil and gas deposits along both coastlines where they had previously been joined.
Now, Angus McCoss, exploration director and chief geologist at Tullow Oil, which in 2007 discovered one of the biggest oil finds of recent years off the coast of West Africa, is betting more than $100 million that a similar bonanza awaits off South America’s eastern shore, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its February 28 issue.
Tullow and partners Royal Dutch Shell and Total by the end of March will start drilling their first deepwater test well about 160 km off French Guiana, a sliver of South American rainforest best known as a former penal colony. The prospect field, called Zaedyus, lies 6,400 metres below the ocean’s surface.
McCoss, who spent most of his career at Shell, aims to repeat the success of Jubilee, Tullow’s 120,000 barrel-a-day field off Ghana on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. He’s optimistic because of evidence that Zaedyus mirrors Jubilee’s geology, formed in the Cretaceous period when the African and South American land masses began to separate.
“Tullow has proven more than once they are capable of thinking outside the box,” says Thierry Pilenko, chief executive officer of oil service provider Technip. The idea of twin basins on either side of the Atlantic is “compelling,” he said.
A glance at a map shows how South America would once have fit snugly into Africa’s Bight of Benin. Zaedyus is the first well to test the “Atlantic mirror” theory and the payoff could be huge. Computer models estimate the field may hold 700 million barrels in gross reserves, valued at more than $70 billion at today’s oil prices.
“Zaedyus is the most exciting well of the year, as bold as it gets,” says McCoss, who joined Tullow in 2006. “It’s remarkable to try to open up a new basin in 2011.”
