The French oil and gas major, in this connection has agreed to acquire Samson Offshore Anchor, a subsidiary of Samson, which holds the stake in four blocks covering the Anchor oil discovery.
Total Exploration & Production president Arnaud Breuillac said: “The entry in the Anchor discovery further increases Total’s footprint in deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
“It follows our entry in seven exploration prospects located in the promising Wilcox (Central GoM) and Norphlet (Eastern GoM) plays thanks to an agreement signed with Chevron last September, and in the Jack field where the Group will acquire a 25% interest as part of the Maersk Oil deal.”
Samson Energy, on its website, stated that Samson Offshore holds non-operated stakes in the deepwater GOM and has been involved in making multiple discoveries in the Miocene and Wilcox subsalt trends since 2006.
Its non-operated working stakes are in more than 70 federal leases, covering around 400,000 gross acres.
In addition to Anchor, Samson Offshore holds a working interest (WI) of 19.13% in the Noble Energy-operated Gunflint field and a 33.1% WI in the Murphy-operated Samurai field.
Through its acquisition, Total will now join Chevron, the operator of the Anchor field with a stake of 55% alongside Cobalt International Energy and Venari Resources, which holds stakes of 20% and 12.5%, respectively.
The Anchor discovery was announced by Chevron in January 2015. The oil field is located about 225km off the coast of Louisiana and is contained in more than 1,500m of water.
As part of its transaction with Samson, Total will raise its stake in the nearby exploration block Green Canyon 761 to 37.5% by adding the former’s interest of 12.5%.
Image: The Anchor well was drilled by Pacific Drilling's Pacific Santa Ana drillship. Photo: courtesy of Pacific Drilling.
