Oil and gas company Chariot has officially obtained Rissana’s offshore license in Morocco, after agreeing key terms in December 2020.
The company obtained a 75% stake and the exploitation of the Rissana permit in partnership with the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (“ONHYM”) which will hold a 25% stake.
Rissana, covering an area of approximately 8,489 km2, surrounds the offshore area of Chariot’s existing Lixus Offshore (“Lixus”) license, where the company announced in January 2022 the conclusion of successful drilling operations on the field of ‘Anchovies, including important new gas discoveries.
Chariot said the Rissana license provides additional potential headroom on the trend with the Anchois gas discovery and reintegrates the higher potential areas of the former Mohammedia offshore zone into Chariot’s portfolio.
The minimum initial license commitment is the acquisition of a 2D seismic survey, which will help assess the extent and potential of these gas fields across Rissana.
“We are pleased to officially award Chariot the Rissana license offshore Morocco. ONHYM and Chariot recently conducted a very successful drilling campaign in Morocco and we hope we can have similar success on Rissana,” said Amina Benkhadra, director general of the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines.
“We are delighted to have officially obtained the Rissana license. As we have demonstrated with our recent successful drilling campaign at Anchois, this is a very promising basin and together with the Lixus Offshore license award from Rissana ensures that we have captured the exploration benefits in this exciting game. Alongside the development plans for the Anchois gas field, we aim to maximize the value of exploration benefits in what we believe to be a low risk, high value opportunity,” said Adonis Pouroulis, interim CEO.
At the start of 2022, Chariot declared that it had made a major gas discovery at the Anchois well in the Lixus license, offshore Morocco.
Using Stena Drilling’s Stena Don semi-submersible drilling rig, Chariot drilled the Anchois-2 appraisal and exploration well to a total measured depth of 2,512 meters in 381 meters of water. .
.