What is an Exploration Drill29 Mar 2026 13:02
I posted on another BB and maybe of interest.
A exploration drill is to prove the following.
1) are Hydrocarbons and/or gas present
2) evidence of pressure that it can flow to surface
3) enough oil to be commercial
The first point, are hydrocarbons present seems to the difficult for most people to understand. You can only prove the presence of hydrocarbons by drilling, after 100 years of oil exploration the technology cannot prove the existence of a working petroleum system. By working system we need to see oil traps, oil must be trapped in permeable rock but held in a trap by an Impermeable layer (like clay or salt) so the oil doesn’t escape.
Point two is self explanatory, but you need to understand some of the geology. Oil is held in rock like a sponge holds water, you can’t just ‘suck’ this oil out, it must flow between the rock and produce enough upward pressure (flow) to be extracted.
3) commercial oil, forget about headline numbers like 13b or 3.9b, these are the P10 numbers and are extremely unlikely, for each prospect OPW-1, OPW-6, etc) look at P10, P50 and P90 numbers, these are probabilities- P50 meaning 50% probability given point 1+2 are true.
Once exploration well is proved or disproved you can start your appraisal wells, or if you were extremely fortunate you could go directly to development, this is rare but possible.