TOTAL, operator of the Consortium Cuenca Marina Austral, with a 37.5% interest, alongside Deminex (37.5%) and Pan American Energy (25%), has brought on stream a new long offset well, extending from Tierra del Fuego to the offshore Ara West field, located about ten kilometers from the Argentine coast. 
Drilling lasted 52 days, for a total drilled length of 6,638 meters at a vertical depth of 1,795 meters.
Initial production amounts to 17,300 barrels per day (b/d), which establishes a new productivity record for drilled wells in Argentina.
After drilling four similar wells, beginning in May 1997, this latest success confirms TOTAL's expertise in advanced technologies and their usefulness in developing new oil and gas resources offshore Tierra del Fuego. The advantage of long offset wells is that they can extend over long distances through thin deposits, thus reducing the number of offshore production platforms needed and consequently the cost of each barrel produced.
TOTAL and its partners will use the same technology to develop the new Kaus oil field, located eight kilometers from Tierra del Fuego, without production platforms.
In 1997, TOTAL's production in Tierra del Fuego amounted to 2.2 billion cubic meters of gas a year and 22,000 b/d of oil. |
