Petrobras Tanzania begins drilling for oil at Zeta-1 block

Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s Tanzanian unit is drilling the first of two wells it plans to sink in deepwater blocks off the country’s coast this year and next to explore for oil and natural gas.

It will take 70 to 90 days to drill the Zeta-1 well in Block 5 to a depth of 527 meters (1,729 feet) below the seabed, Dar es Salaam-based Tanzania Petroleum Development Corp. said today on its website. The company spudded the well on Aug. 31.

The same drillship, Ocean Rig Poseidon, will immediately move on to drill a well in Block 2, which is operated by Statoil ASA based in Norway, according to the statement.

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company, reached an agreement to farm out 50 percent of Blocks 5 and 6 in Tanzania to Shell Deepwater Tanzania BV, it said yesterday. Tanzania may have as much as 10 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, Energy Minister William Ngeleja said on Sept. 23.

BG Tanzania, the operator of Block 1, 3 and 4, plans to drill “additional” wells off the coast of the East African nation from January, it said.

BG Group Plc received permission from the government of Tanzania to acquire a 60 percent stake in each of the blocks covering a total of 20,850 square kilometers from London-based Ophir Energy Plc in July, according to the company’s website.

--Editors: Alex Devine, Stephen Cunningham

To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah McGregor in Nairobi at smcgregor5bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at bardenbloomberg.net