Morocco to invest $164 million in Petroleum exploration in 2018
Rabat, Feb. 6, 2018 (AltAfrika)– A total of 164 million U.S. dollars is expected to be invested in oil and gas exploration operations in Morocco this year, local media reported on Monday.
According to financial daily L’Economiste, the investments will be dedicated to six wells, including one offshore.
In 2017, exploration investments exceeded 130 million U.S. dollars and covered a surface area of 170,000 square kilometers, the same source said.
During the same year, the north African kingdom issued some 22 onshore and 77 offshore licenses as well as 9 exploitation permissions, it noted.
Between 2000 and 2017, Morocco’s total investments in oil and gas explorations onshore and offshore totalled 2.7 billion U.S. dollars, 96 percent of which was paid by partners of the Moroccan state-owned hydrocarbons and mining office.
Meanwhile SDX Energy Inc (LON:SDX, CVE:SDX) has unearthed a new gas discovery onshore Morocco, in the ONZ-7 well at the Sebou project.
The ONZ-7 well was drilled down to a depth of 1,167 metres and uncovered 5 metres of net conventional gas pay, in the Hoot formation, which as the company highlighted, was found to be “on prognosis”. Reservoir quality was seen to be better than the company expected, with porosity measuring 35.3%.
READ: SDX Energy kicks off fifth well in Morocco campaign
ONZ-7 will now be complete, tested and subsequently connected to existing infrastructure for long term production operations. Testing results are anticipated in early February.
“We are very excited to be able to announce another discovery, the fourth from five wells drilled to date in our nine well Moroccan campaign,” said Paul Welch, SDX chief executive.
READ: SDX Energy puts expectation-beating Morocco well into production
“For this well we used our own high resolution 3D seismic data, as we have for the other successful wells and as we will for the remainder of the campaign.”
SDX will subsequently continue the ongoing drill programme, by moving on to drill the KSS-2 prospect.
