Marathon hits dry hole at Pasangkayu

US oil, gas firm Marathon Oil Corporation reported on Monday that the drilling of the deepwater Bravo-1 well in the northeastern portion of the Pasangkayu PSC offshore the island of Sulawesi in the Makassar Strait, failed to discover commercial hydrocarbon.

The well was drilled in a water depth of approximately 3,200 feet and reached a total depth of 9,000 feet. Gas shows were recorded during drilling of the objective reservoir interval; however, the analysis of log and pressure data indicates the reservoir to be water-wet, the company said. Both the thickness and quality of the reservoir encountered are encouraging and the well results confirm the pre-drill geologic model predictions, it added.

"Bravo was a challenging, frontier exploration well," said Annell Bay, Marathon senior vice president of Worldwide Exploration. "Marathon continues to evaluate the data and will integrate the results into evaluation of the remaining potential of the block."

The company intends to record a dry hole expense of approximately US$60 million for the Bravo-1 well in the fourth quarter of 2010.

The Romeo prospect, located on the north-central portion of the Pasangkayu block in a water depth of 6,200, is expected to be drilled during the first half of 2011, the company said.

Marathon is the block operator with 70 percent interest.

Marathon holds approximately 1.8 million net acres (3.3 million acres gross) across the Pasangkayu, Bone Bay and Kumawa blocks in Indonesia.(alex)