Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol and Occidental Petroleum are preparing to drill the Komodo-1 exploration well offshore Colombia in water depths of around 3,900 metres, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
If carried out, the well could surpass the current water-depth record holder, the Ondjaba-1 well offshore Angola, by around 300 metres. The companies plan to drill Komodo-1 before the end of 2024.
The effort to break the water-depth record with Komodo-1 has been enabled in part by improved marine-seismic technology that allows exploration at greater depths and distances, Ecopetrol’s offshore chief Elsa Jaimes told Bloomberg during an interview.
In February, Ecopetrol announced the discovery of two new offshore gas deposits in Colombia’s Caribbean waters while working to assess the size of the Orca-1 discovery, made in 2014 in partnership with Brazil’s Petrobras. The discoveries, found in separate reservoirs, have raised hopes that additional finds can be made in the Colombian deepwater.
Although the country’s current administration has halted the award of new oil and gas licences in a shift away from fossil fuels, Ecopetrol is striving to maximise the yield of existing licences to forestall a potential loss of gas self-sufficiency.