Tower Resources Plc said Dec. 7 that its wholly owned subsidiary, Tower Resources Cameroon SA, has signed a contract with Vantage Drilling International for the Topaz Driller jackup rig to provide drilling operations for the NJOM-3 well which is planned for Tower’s 100% owned and operated Thali license, offshore Cameroon, in second-quarter 2019.

The Topaz Driller is a Baker Marine Pacific Class 375 jackup, which was recently mobilized to Cameroon by NewAge as operator for the Etinde license for two appraisal wells and is currently employed in Gabon.

As in November 2018, the terms of the contract are confidential, however the economics are consistent with Tower’s current drilling cost estimates.

The NJOM-3 well will be targeting gross mean contingent (2C) resources of 18 million barrels (MMbbl) across the Njonji-1 and Njonji-2 fault blocks located in the south of the Thali license with an EMV10 of $118 million, as identified by the recent Oilfield International Ltd. reserves report announced in November 2018. Furthermore, the NJOM-3 well is expected to de-risk an additional 20 MMbbl of gross mean prospective resources across Njonji South and Njonji South-West.

The objectives of the NJOM-3 well are to test the thickness of reservoirs already identified by NJOM-1 and also to test for other reservoirs which may be present at the new location. It will also provide key flow-rate data for the Njonji reservoirs from a drill stem test, which would allow reclassification of contingent resources into 2P reserves as well as providing critical reservoir characterization data for the potential field development strategy.

“We are very pleased to have secured the Topaz Driller, the same rig which our well management team at Bedrock Drilling used to drill the two recent Etinde wells. We see the NJOM-3 well, in Q2 2019, as just the beginning of our drilling activity on the Thali license, as we explained in our corporate presentation of last month,” Jeremy Asher, chairman and CEO, said.

Offshore