?1 Canada
Calgary-based Triangle Pet­ro­leum Corp. reports that its Horton Bluff shale in the Windsor Block of Nova Scotia contains 69 trillion cu. ft. of original gas in place. The estimate covers approximately 40% of the area of Triangle’s gross land-holdings in Windsor Block. Last year, the company drilled two vertical shale tests, one of which flowed at rates up to 60,000 cu. ft. of gas per day. The #2 Kennetcook, originally designed for geological data collection, demonstrates that gas can produce into a vertical wellbore. Triangle plans to conclude testing of the #2 Kennetcook and begin a multi-well drilling program.

2 Canada
Crew Energy Inc., Calgary, plans to acquire 104 net sections of Triassic Montney formation rights in northeastern British Columbia. The acquisition is near Crew’s 23-section Septimus Block, in which Upper Montney is 260 to 440 ft. thick. Crew plans to evaluate the resource potential in the Lower Montney, which is relatively unproved but can be as thick as 980 ft. This year, it plans to drill up to 14 Montney horizontal tests.

3 Mexico
Pemex is completing Tamil, its seventh deepwater test in the Gulf of Mexico, as a discovery. It contains 18?-gravity heavy-grade oil. The company is accelerating its deepwater program, and is contracting a second rig. It plans two more deepwater wells this year.

4 Ireland
ExxonMobil Corp. will kick off a 3,000-kilometer 2-D seismic survey over its Drombeg prospect off Ireland’s southwestern coast. The survey will cover frontier exploration licenses 1/08 and 2/08 in 2,000 to 3,000 meters of water. ExxonMobil’s partners in the project are Providence Resources and Sosina Exploration. The companies picked up the block in the Irish government’s 2007 Porcupine licensing round.
Separately, IHS Inc. reports that StatoilHydro has spudded its 19/8-1 well on its Cashel prospect. The well is in 198 meters of water in the Erris Trough offshore northwestern Ireland. The nearest exploratory well was drilled about 35 kilometers to the southwest.

5 Norway
StatoilHydro plans to start development of Tyrihans Field in the Haltenbanken area of the Norwegian Sea. E&P Daily reports that this will be one of the largest development projects on the Norwegian Continental Shelf in the next few years. The field will be developed with multilateral and smart wells with downhole regulation and control equipment. Pumps for seawater injection will be installed directly on the seabed. Eight production wells, two gas injectors and one seawater injector will be drilled. Tyrihans contains 176 million bbl. of oil and 1.06 trillion cu. ft. of gas. First oil is expected next year. StatoilHydro’s partners in the field are Total, ENI and ExxonMobil.

6 Ghana
Dallas-based Kosmos Energy’s Mahogany-2 well, drilled to appraise Jubilee Field offshore Ghana, intersected a significant column of light oil. The appraisal well, drilled in the West Cape Three Points license, cut 243 meters of gross reservoir section in Turonian turbidite sandstones. Net hydrocarbon-bearing pay was 50 meters. The test was drilled in 1,080 meters of water and reached a total depth of 3,443 meters. Drilling results indicate that the Jubilee accumulation features 600 meters of oil and gas column, and extends at least 11 kilometers to the Hyedua-1 discovery well in the adjacent Deepwater Tano license. Three more Jubilee appraisal wells are planned for 2008. Partners in the well are Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Tullow Oil, E.O. Group, Sabre Oil & Gas and Ghana National Petroleum Corp. The group looks toward first production in 2010.

7 Equatorial Guinea
Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. successfully drilled its I-5 Benita appraisal well to a total depth of 10,088 ft. It encountered approximately 42 ft. of net oil pay, defined the water-oil contact, and moved the lowest known oil down structure approximately 28 ft. The company tested rates of 6,250 bbl. of oil and 5.4 million cu. ft. of gas per day from the well. It is moving forward with engineering and production studies to submit a plan of development by year-end, and first production is expected in 2012. Noble’s partners are Atlas Petroleum International Ltd., Glencore International, PA Resources and GEPetrol.

8 Angola
Italian firm ENI paid $920 million for rights to a deepwater block offshore Angola in 2006. Now, the company has completed its Sangos-1 in Block 15/06. The well was drilled in 1,349 meters of water to a total depth of 3,343 meters. It encountered 127 meters of pay in Miocene sands. ENI’s partners are Sonangol, SSI Fifteen Ltd., Total SA, Falcon Oil, Petrobras and StatoilHydro.

9 Russia
A major oil and gas-condensate field has been discovered in Russia’s sector of the Caspian Sea. The Tsentralnaya structure was drilled by a joint venture of Lukoil and Gazprom. The find lies 150 kilometers east of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. Previously, Lukoil had estimated that the structure could contain as much as 3.7 billion bbl. of oil. Actual results have not been released.

10 China
Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. will spud its first deepwater exploration well offshore China this year on Block 43/11. The test of the LW21-1 prospect is projected to 4,000 meters. The license covers 9,729 sq. kilometers in water depths from 1,500 to 3,000 meters.
Nearby, Husky Energy, Calgary, is planning development of its Liwan Field. The South China Sea project could cost between $4- and $5 billion, including a 320-kilometer pipeline. Liwan, which holds 4- to 6 trillion cu. ft. of gas, is owned by Husky and partner China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC).

11 Indonesia
Indonesia’s government is reviewing Chevron Corp.’s plan to develop five deepwater fields in the Kutei Basin, offshore East Kalimantan. The development will be in 2,500 to 6,000 ft. of water. The company would like to send gas to both the domestic market and the Bontang LNG plant.

12 Australia
Australian firm Santos Ltd. reports that it is making good progress on its $7.2-billion Gladstone LNG development. The company says it is on schedule to start exporting in 2014. Gladstone LNG is made up of three parts: the development of the coalbed-methane fields around Roma and Injune in Eastern Queensland; the construction of an LNG processing plant at Curtis Island that lies in the Port of Gladstone; and the construction of a 430-kilometer gas pipeline linking these fields to the Gladstone plant.

13 Australia
New York City-based Hess Corp. is drilling the first of four exploration wells offshore Western Australia. The Glencoe 1 wildcat was spudded on WA-390-P on the Exmouth Plateau in the North Carnarvon Basin. Located 50 kilometers west-southwest of giant Jansz Io Field, the well follows a 3,135-sq.-kilometer 3-D seismic survey that was completed this spring, reports IHS Inc. The company also committed to reprocess 2,000 kilometers of 2-D seismic. The seismic and Glencoe well are toward the $482 million Hess pledged to spend during the six-year term of the lease.