Shell Hits Pay At Dover In Deepwater US GoM

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (NYSE: RDS.A) has made its sixth discovery—Dover—in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico’s (GoM) Norphlet play, hitting more than 244 m (800 ft) of net pay, the company said May 24.

Drilled in Mississippi Canyon Block 612 in a water depth of 2,280 m (7,500 ft), the well reached a total vertical drilling depth of 6,780 m (29,000 ft) measured depth. But it is too early for Shell to reveal the estimated size of the discovery as well results are still being evaluated.

“Early indications are that this is primarily an oil discovery,” Shell spokeswoman Kimberly Windon told Hart Energy in an emailed statement. “Additional evaluation of the well data must be completed before we can determine the total size and recoverable resource potential across the discovery, but we do anticipate that Dover will be a tieback.”