BP's new oil find to boost output

The well is located in Keathley Canyon block 102, around 250 miles south east of Houston. It was drilled to a depth of approximately 35,055 feet, thus becoming one of the deepest wells ever drilled by the oil and gas industry, the company stated.

This is BP’s second material discovery, following the earlier one at Kaskida.

Oil discovery to rev up production
The Gulf of Mexico has increasingly gained importance among the western oil majors as countries like Saudi Arabia, Russia etc had reserved their oil fields to be harnessed by their own companies.

BP is currently the biggest oil and gas producer in the area with total production capacity equivalent to 400,000 barrels of oil a day. The new discovery will enable BP to boost its production up to 650,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day within the next 15 years.

Andy Inglis, BP's head of Exploration and Production, stated, "These material discoveries together with our industry leading acreage position support the continuing growth of our deepwater Gulf of Mexico business into the second half of the next decade.”

Tiber bigger than Kaskida discovery
BP is working on nine projects in the Gulf of Mexico and has 62 percent working interest in the block, followed by Petrobras that owns 20 percent, and ConocoPhillips holding 18 percent.

The oil discovery at Tiber is bigger than BP’s Kaskida discovery in the same geographical area in 2006.

“It will be bigger than the 3 billion barrels” of oil equivalent discovered at the nearby Kaskida field,” said Robert Wine, a London-based spokesman at BP. “This is a whole new geological play we’ve got here.”

Not all the oil at Tiber will be recoverable. BP will conduct appraisals to determine how much can be extracted.

A 20 percent to 30 percent recovery rate could mean recoverable reserves equivalent to 600 million to 900 million barrels of oil, said NCB Stockbrokers analyst Peter Hutton.