RE: Brian’s Sound judgement2 Nov 2018 08:10
Prolific
At that time, Statoil was having success in the Gulf of Mexico but was lagging elsewhere.
“We tried a lot of other things. We tried Brazil and probably missed out on the obvious plays, but a lot of people did,” Mitchener says of the prolific pre-salt basins, where present-day incarnation Equinor is now a major player.
A stint at UK gas giant BG Group followed, until it was swallowed up by Shell, and Mitchener then swapped the world of majors for London-listed junior Sound and its assets in Morocco.
“With the benefit of fracking, you can actually turn Morocco into as good a place as Algeria,” he says of Sound’s main asset, Tendrara, where he sees an excellent seal and world-class source rock.
The company secured a production concession in September to develop the onshore gas discovery and has filed a development plan that includes drilling five horizontal wells, building a central processing facility and a 120-kilometre, 20-inch export pipeline connecting the field to the Gazoduc Maghreb Europe route.
A final investment decision is contingent on signing a gas sales agreement, financing and other factors. First gas is then targeted within two years, with an expected mid-case production rate of 60 million cubic feet per day over a minimum period of 10 years.
With his explorer’s hat on, Mitchener cannot help but sniff out other basins around the world with real potential.
Bolivia is one area that has always fascinated him, not that Sound has any intention of going there, but he believes that the high cost of drilling wells in the country has meant it has lacked focus from the industry.
“Has anyone really tried very hard? You are not sure how much drillers have sat down and really thought about what it will take to do something there.
“I think it is one of those places that is sitting there and is waiting for someone to really take it on.”
It is not just Bolivia. Mitchener sees the general lack of exploration success in recent years in other areas as a concern, with not nearly enough drilling work being done by the industry in the downturn.
“I think everybody is very good at the general bread and butter of how you actually analyse a basin. What is not so good is the people who are actually able to find it,” he says.
“I think you have to have a better and better understanding of the basins you are working in. You can’t just drift in and out and think you are going to see something.”
Mitchener certainly hopes Sound can execute on its homework in Morocco to bring its field development dreams to fruition.
“It is going to make or break, I suppose,” he says of the upcoming well programme. “If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t be drilling it.”
Sign In
Follow the stocks
