Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP) has announced it has entered into a agreement to participate in exploration activity offshore Morocco
The company said that subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of Moroccan governmental approvals, PXP would make a payment of US$15mn to farm-in to Pura Vida Energy’s 75 per cent working interest in the 2.7mn acre Mazagan permit area offshore Morocco.
PXP will earn a 52 per cent working interest and act as an operator in exchange for funding 100 per cent of the costs of exploration activities like funding and drilling two wells, and various other exploration operations.
The first exploration well, expected to be drilled in 2014, will primarily target the Toubkal prospect.
PXP revealed that the Mazagan permit area lies off the coast of Morocco in the Essaouira Basin and includes numerous mid Miocene and lower Cretaceous prospects identified based on recently reprocessed 3D seismic data.
DeGolyer and MacNaughton reported in an independent resource assessment completed by the firm in September 2012 that the prospective recoverable resources from the area were at over seven billion barrels.
