Japan’s Inpex announced on 14 December the discovery of up to 1bn barrels of oil equivalent from its first exploration well at the Onshore 4 exploration block. The firm says it has “discovered multiple conventional oil, condensate and gas columns as a result of drilling an exploration well from May until August 2021.”

Inpex was awarded exploration rights to Onshore 4 in 2019 under Adnoc’s debut licensing round (MEES, 22 March 2019). The firm also has stakes in the Adnoc Onshore, Lower Zakum, Upper Zakum and Umm al-Dalkh/Satah concessions, from which its net production over the first nine months of 2021 was 219,000 b/d (see chart). (CONTINUED - 667 WORDS)