Salamander Energy plc, an independent upstream oil and gas exploration and production company focused on Asia, declaress that the Lumba Lumba-1 exploration well in permit SC41, in the Sandakan Basin, offshore northeast Borneo, Philippines, was spudded on 19 July 2008. Salamander holds a 35% interest in SC41.

Lumba Lumba-1 is being drilled to a planned depth of 3,000 metres sub-sea using the semi-submersible Transocean Legend in a water depth of 1,100 metres.

The exploration well is targeting multiple stacked objectives in a large inversion structure. A prospective resource potential of circa 200 million barrels of oil equivalent is estimated for the inversion structure, with the key technical risk being reservoir sandstone development.

A 760 km2 3D seismic survey was acquired in 2007 in SC41 and a variety of structural and stratigraphic prospects have been mapped. The Lumba Lumba structure is located on trend from the Wildebeest-1 well, which was drilled in 2000 by a previous operator and which recovered 38o API oil. As well as testing the potential of this sizeable structure, the stratigraphic information to be gathered from the Lumba Lumba well will be critical in defining the further prospectivity elsewhere in the acreage.

Tags: Salamander Energy