OffShore Magazine
HOUSTON – Plains Exploration & Production Co. (NYSE:PXP) has agreed to participate in an exploration play offshore Morocco.
Subject to customary closing conditions including the receipt of Moroccan governmental approvals, PXP will pay $15 million to farm-in to Pura Vida Energy’s (ASX:PVD) 75% working interest in the 2.7-million acre Mazagan permit area offshore Morocco.
PXP will earn a 52% working interest and be operator in exchange for funding 100% of the costs of specified exploration activities that include drilling of two wells, and if agreed, various additional exploration operations subject to a maximum of $215 million. The first exploration well will target the Toubkal prospect and is expected to be drilled in 2014.
The Mazagan permit is in the Essaouira basin and PXP said it includes Mid Miocene and Lower Cretaceous prospects identified based on recently reprocessed 3D seismic data. An independent resource assessment by DeGolyer and MacNaughton in September 2012 estimated the gross unrisked mean prospective recoverable resources at over 7 Bbbl, including the 1.5 Bbbl gross unrisked mean prospective recoverable Toubkal Mid Miocene prospect.
For more information about oil and gas activity offshore Morocco, click here. For data on all of Africa, click here.
1/3/2013
