A Kuwait Energy-led consortium announced on Wednesday that it had made its first oil discovery at Block 9, in Basra, southern, Iraq.
The successful discovery was at the consortium's first target, the Mishrif formation at 2,700 meters, in its Block 9 exploration well, Faihaa-1, the company said in a statement.
Preliminary tests of the Faihaa-1 Mishrif formation resulted in a flow rate of circa 2,000 BOPD of 20 API oil on 32/64" choke, it added. According to the statement, the consortium comprised of Kuwait Energy (70 percent and operator) and Dragon Oil (30 percent), will conduct more detailed testing on Mishrif towards the end of the year.
The consortium's strategy is to continue drilling activities, exploring deeper horizons and collecting further data, to fully evaluate the discovery and to define an appraisal plan, it said.
"This is the first well drilled in our planned high-impact exploration campaign on Block 9, so we are delighted to have made a discovery so quickly. We continue to believe that Block 9 has strong exploration potential and look forward to facilitating an appraisal plan on Faihaa-1 and continuing to drill other exploration targets," said Kuwait Energy CEO, Sara Akbar.