Ultra-deep makes a splash with new discovery

As exploration ramps up in the Gulf of Mexico, the Lower Tertiary and Paleogene plays have become hot prospects

It is three years since the Macondo disaster, and the Lower Tertiary is once again at the forefront of exploration in the ultra-deep water Gulf of Mexico (GOM). A pair of significant discoveries and a $1.2 billion land sale in western federal waters have added new momentum to the play. On 26 March, Chevron announced a discovery at the Coronado prospect in Walker Ridge Block 98. The discovery well, the first spudded on the prospect, was drilled to total depth of 31,866 feet in 6,127 feet of water, and hit 400 feet of net pay. The Coronado find comes hard on the heels of Anadarko's Shenandoah-2 appraisal well, which encountered 1,000 feet of oil-saturated sands in the Lower Tertiary. It was dr