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Shell Fails to Find Oil With Tullow in Final French Guiana Well 2013-11-13 07:51:21.955 GMT
By Eduard Gismatullin Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Tullow Oil Plc failed to find oil or natural gas in their last planned exploration well off French Guiana, a partner said. The companies drilled the GM-ES-5 well to a total depth of 6,460 meters (21,200 feet), Northern Petroleum Plc said today in a statement. The well will be plugged and abandoned. “Reservoir sequences were encountered as expected but with no evidence of hydrocarbons,” Northern Petroleum said. “Once the drill ship, the Stena ICEMax, has completed the abandonment operations it will move to a location outside French Guiana.” The result marks the fourth unsuccessful well off the Latin American country, where Tullow made the first oil find with its Zaedyus well in 2011. The Shell-led joint venture, which also includes Total SA and Wessex Exploration Plc, will suspend drilling until 2015, Northern Petroleum said in September. Tullow said today in a separate statement that the GM-ES-5 well had reached its target depth and “evaluation operations are ongoing.”
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--Editors: Amanda Jordan, Ana Monteiro
To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at +44-20-7673-2268 or egismatullin@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at +44-20-7073-3603 or wkennedy3@bloomberg.net