Nexen Re-Evaluating Yemen Drilling After Well Comes Up Dry

Oil Daily, The, June, 2002

Nexen Re-Evaluating Yemen Drilling After Well Comes Up Dry

Canada's Nexen is to rethink its exploratory drilling in northern Yemen, near the border with Saudi Arabia, after failing with its Al-Mawarid well in May.

Nexen's first well on Yemen's Block 59 -- a thin strip of land gained from Saudi Arabia in a mid-2000 border settlement -- came up dry (OD May22,p7). The well, drilled to 14,170 feet, was "right on the Saudi border," Nexen Chief Executive Charlie Fischer said at a conference in Calgary earlier this week. "We found the structures [but] we were too far from the source," he added.

Nexen is targeting the same major structure that produces oil in neighboring Saudi Arabia and Oman.

The company will now re-examine its seismic data, and...