Statoil says East Canadian oil finds may signal Moroccan discoveries due to similar geology
Statoil says East Canadian oil finds may signal Moroccan discoveries due to similar geology
BY EDUARD GISMATULLIN
LONDON (Bloomberg) -- Statoil said oil discoveries off eastern Canada may signal potential crude finds off Morocco in northwest Africa because the regions could have similar geology.
Statoil’s latest Bay du Nord find in Canada’s Flemish Pass Basin may hold as much as 600 MMbbls of recoverable oil, according to the company. That part of the North American coast used to be joined with Africa before the continents’ tectonic plates moved apart more than 100 million years ago.
“The analogue is probably more toward northwestern Africa, toward Morocco,” Tim Dodson, VP of exploration at Statoil, said in an interview in London on November 27. “This is where potentially you could look.”
Some of the world’s biggest oil companies, including BP and Chevron, plan to expand operations off Morocco this decade, while the United Kingdom’s Cairn Energy started a new well there in October. Across the Atlantic Ocean in Canada, Statoil and Husky Energy made their first discovery at the Flemish Pass’s Mizzen prospect off Newfoundland in 2009.
“Maybe the Mizzen well told them something,” Dodson said of the other oil producers. “It’s pretty strange to me that they are taking positions in Morocco, but then they don’t want to join in Canada, where we have already proven the hydrocarbon system.”
Statoil had sought more partners to share drilling costs prior to the Bay du Nord and Harpoon finds this year, according to Dodson. The company now plans to appraise the discoveries further before offering any stakes in the fields and deciding on their development.
“We have a lot of upside on the structure, which we’ve not assessed yet. This could get bigger,” he said. “We are not about to sell in Canada any time soon.” A total of about 10 wells in Moroccan waters are planned through 2014, according to Citigroup. Explorers have long operated onshore in the country, drilling 730 wells since 1919, while there are only 40 at sea, according to Oswald Clint, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. in London.
