Descubren un pozo de petróleo con un potencial de 1.000 millones de barriles en Marruecos

The British company Oil & Gas announced the discovery of an oil field with a potential of 1 billion barrels off the coast of Agadir, in southern Morocco.

The company reported this ambitious discovery in its latest communication published on 13 April, and considered the exploration opportunities in this area to be of "high impact".

The drilling licence, called Inzegane Offshore, was granted in September 2019 and prospecting officially began last August, according to the note, which adds that, of this field, which covers an area of 11,228 square kilometres, the company holds 75% of the exploitation, and the rest is in the possession of the Moroccan National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM).

"Inzegane represents high-impact exploration opportunities in an unexplored area of the world," the company explains. It adds that the recent appraisal reveals a "significant volume of unrisked recoverable values" of 1 billion barrels of the fuel.

Morocco has not yet officially commented on the announcement by the British company, which on its website places the exploration at a depth of 600 to 2,000 kilometres in the Agadir basin.

Amina Benkhadra, director general of Morocco's state-owned oil company ONHYM, last week gave an overview of the country's exploration activities before the Chamber of Representatives (lower house of the Moroccan parliament), noting that between 2000 and 2022, Morocco drilled 67 wells, of which 40 were positive for oil or gas.

Seven of the 67 were drilled in the waters off the coast between Agadir and Tarfaya, three of them in shallow water and four in deep water. Five of these seven (two in the Tarfaya and Ifni area, close to the Canary Islands) were found to contain oil or traces of oil.