Nexen, an independent energy company based in Canada, has announced that the company has completed drilling operations at the Kakuna sub-salt exploration well, which is located at Green Canyon block 504 in Mexico.
Commercial hydrocarbons were not found in the well, which is currently being plugged and deserted. The company drilled the Kakuna exploration well to a depth of 30,300 ft. The total expense for this well exploration is around $120 million.
The company has included a wide range of exploration prospects located in the Gulf of Mexico, which also contains the Norphlet play that encloses Nexen’s Appomattox discoveries and the sub-salt Miocene play present in the central part of the Gulf of Mexico. The exploration and testing work will be continuously developed in the Appomattox region, where the company has so far identified more than 500 M barrels of resource. The company’s exploration campaign for 2012 has incorporated around 15 offshore exploration and evaluation wells located in the UK North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. During the previous years, majority of the discoveries have been carried out by the company at the offshore plays, which additionally includes Golden Eagle in the UK North Sea, Appomattox in Gulf of Mexico, and Owowo South B in West Africa.
Nexen has targeted three growth plans that include shale gas and oil sands in West Canada and traditional exploration and advancement mainly in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, offshore West Africa and North Sea.