The Anchois gas field is located within the Lixus licence, off the Moroccan coast, in the Atlantic Ocean.
Africa focused transitional energy group Chariot is the operator of Lixus licence with 75% interest. State-owned entity Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) owns the remaining 25% stake.
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Anchois gas field was discovered in 2009. In June 2019, Chariot announced that the development of the Anchois Field is technically feasible, following the completion of the Development Feasibility Study.
The front-end engineering and design (FEED) on the key components of Anchois gas development project was completed in March 2023. This will be followed by the Final Investment Decision (FID), with first gas from the project expected to be achieved in 2024.
Anchois gas field location details
The Anchois gas field is located within the Lixus licence. The location is approximately 40km off the coast of Morocco.
The Lixus offshore licence includes an area of around 1,794km² with water depth ranging up to 850m. Existing 3D seismic data covers approximately 1,425km² of the area.
Chariot also operates the Rissana Offshore licence block, which surrounds the Lixus acreage.
Discovery and Appraisal
The Anchois gas field was discovered in 2009 by the Anchois-1 well. The well encountered an estimated net gas pay of 55m in two intervals of gas-bearing sands.
In January 2022, Chariot announced the completion of gas drilling operations on the Anchois gas project.
The second appraisal and exploration well Anchois-2 was drilled to a total depth of 2,512m by the Stena Don drilling rig in 381m of water. It encountered a net gas pay of more than 100m.
As part of appraisal objectives, the Anchois-2 well encountered the A and B gas sands, which were discovered by the Anchois-1 well. It also identified new discoveries in the C, M and O gas sands.
The gas sampled within the gas-bearing zones had consistent composition throughout the well and was of high quality. It contained more than 96% methane (dry gas) and had no problematic impurities such as hydrogen sulphide or carbon dioxide.
Anchois-1 and Anchois-2 wells remain suspended to enable future potential re-entry as producer wells.
Reserves
In July 2022, Chariot reported material resource upgrades at Anchois Gas Field following an independent assessment.
1C contingent resources increased 82% from 201bcf to 365bcf, while 2C contingent resources jumped by 76% from 361bcf to 637bcf.
There was also a 49% increase in 2U prospective resources to 754bcf in three undrilled targets, with geological success probability ranging from 49% to 61%.
The total remaining recoverable resource at Anchois (2C plus 2U) stands at 1.4 trillion cubic feet (tcf).
Anchois field development
As confirmed by the FEED study, the Anchois Field development will include three initial subsea producer wells including the Anchois-2 well with multi zone completions. This will allow gas recovery across multiple stacked sands.
The produced hydrocarbons will be delivered to the onshore facilities via a subsea flowline. Subsea infrastructure will also include an umbilical to control the wells as well as allow future expansion capabilities to tie-back additional wells.
An onshore central processing facility (CPF) will process the hydrocarbons and will deliver treated gas and condensate via the Maghreb Europe Gas Pipeline, which can provide access to Moroccan domestic markets and export routes into Spain.
Offtake Agreement
In December 2022, Chariot and its partner ONHYM agreed on key principles for long-term gas sales from the Anchois Gas Project with the Office National de l’Electricité et de l’Eau Potable (ONEE).
The key principles include sales of up to 0.6 billion cubic metres (BCM) of gas per year on a take-or-pay basis for a minimum of ten years. The gas will be delivered via the Maghreb Europe Gas Pipeline.
Contractors involved
In 2020, Chariot conducted pre-FEED studies on the development of the Anchois field with Xodus.
In September 2021, Chariot signed a letter of intent (LoI) with Halliburton for well services for the Anchois field. Stena Drilling was contracted to drill the Anchois-2 appraisal well.
In June 2022, Chariot awarded Schlumberger (SLB) and Subsea7, the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract for the Anchois gas development project.
The scope of work included front-end engineering support and design work for offshore and onshore components, and generation of deliverables among others.
Societe Generale was engaged to provide financial advisory services in securing debt funding for the project.
Netherland Sewell and Associates made the independent assessments on the field gas resources, the results of which were announced in July 2022.
