P&B
The answer is very complex. Had to dig up a research paper from the AAPG bulletin last year whilst reading abt TPT.
There hasn't been a ground breaking discovery offshore Morocco so far & in the last 18 months or so there's been 6 odd wells drilled, all have been non-commercial (FA-1, JM-1, FD-1, SM-1, Tao-1 & CB-1).
One of them CB-1 was the deepest in Morocco & came up with 14 net pay, 500m gross & basically non commercial in 2135m water depths (Cairn-Kosmos's Gargaa-1, TD 5700m).
MZ-1 is as good as a wildcatter. The JV have 1 offset well drilled in 2004, in this permit to the SW called Shark-B1 by Vanco which failed to intersect any HC's in the Cretaceous.
There r also 2 wells to the east, Cap Sim-1 drilled to a depth of 3028m by Phillips Petroleum & ESR-1 TD 2888m with some shows in the Cretaceous.
Shark had a 'chaotic zone' above the H490 horizon with gas shows & the well was TD'd in the late Albian at 3976m.
Two follow-up wells Amber-1 & Rak-1 drilled immediately after that also failed to encounter any HC's in the Cretaceous sequence.
Shark had high amplitude on the seismics within the Cenozoic & it turned out 2b from Chert bands. The 3Dseis also identified sediment waves at that location which weren't sand prone, but were reworked shallow water carbonate material.
So basically u have the Shoreline, continental slope & carbonate shelf along which sediments r dragged out west into deeper water as either calciturbidites or distal siliciclastic turbidites (in even simple terms shell fragments/debris & fine to coarse grained sands particles sliding away in deeper water & eventually getting deposited offshore).
As for the Jurassic section. I remember recently Genel (Tony Hayward's mob) drilled SM-1 to a depth of 2825m with oil shows (26 API oil) in Upper Jurassic fractured & brecciated Carbonate. This well is in shallow waters to the south ain the Sidi Mousa block & was non-commercial. Think the ONHYM website should have an updated map, so do chk that at yr pace.
Also as part of research, there r a few deep sea drilling holes which were cored & palyno-fossils dated etc. These DSD holes didn't support anything about oil traces etc.
That's about the Cretaceous & nearby wells etc.
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So what next.
MZ-1 was at 4653m depth & planned TD is 5600m, that's another 1000m to drill.
They should drill the first Fan & log it, if it looks any good.
If it's got any live or residual oil, then the cuttings over the shaker will b examined under the fluoroscope & the gaschrom should give them a C1 to nC4 readout in ppm and a total gas readout in %.
At that point they can opt to stop drilling & run logs over that interval or keep drilling to 5600m, log the 1000m & decide to P&A or drill ahead further.
Usually there's a MWD tool which gives away the sand content (ie gamma ray) & resistivity/SP gives the presence of any oil.
At the end of the drilling, logging, sidewall coring run & MDT sampling, u want moveable hydrocarbons, not residual oil. They can run a raft of new logging tools, if there's any visible oil.
The odds are quite low as the CoS for the 3 Jurassic fans is 13%, 12% & 12% respectively. So MZ-1 should b the first well to drill into the Jurassic sediments in deeper waters.
The Upper Jurassic Fan seems 2b a Stratigraphic trap so u never know what they find in those sediments, as long as its oil & not gas or water.
The mean estimate is 588 mmbbls for the top Fan, which means nothing as the mkt is clearly jittery after this morning's release.
These sort of wells r usually frontier drill holes & have a high element of risk associated with them, ie is there a trap in place, gross thickness of sediments in that reservoir & above all presence of oil.
U might want to read PVD's IPO document on the historic drillholes & maps etc.
That's all I can add. Hope this helps.
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