Canada's Nexen Steps Up Yemen Drilling, Says Regional

Oil Daily, The, February, 2002

Canada's Nexen Steps Up Yemen Drilling, Says Regional Tensions Aren't a Worry

Canada's Nexen has stepped up exploration on the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia -- an area subject to tensions and clashes between the two countries in the past, but which was settled under a border agreement two years ago.

Nexen, formerly known as Canadian Occidental, started drilling the Al-Mawarid well this month on Block 59, a thin strip of land that Yemen gained from Saudi Arabia in a mid- 2000 border settlement. In the early 1990s, Saudi Arabia discovered oil in the Mawarid region.

Nexen is targeting gross reserves of 400 million barrels from the wildcat well and should know results by the end of March, Chief Financial Officer Marvin Romanow said in a...