E&P company Energean has made a commercial gas discovery with the Hermes exploration well offshore Israel and has moved on to drill the next well in the campaign.

As reported in June 2022, Energean made plans to drill two more exploration wells off Israel and exercised its options with Stena Drilling for those wells.

The Hermes exploration well is located in Block 31 and it was spud in August, using the Stena IceMAX drillship. Preliminary estimates indicate that the structure contains 7 – 15 bcm of recoverable natural gas resources, Energean informed on Thursday.

Detailed analysis of the data collected by the well is ongoing, with the aim of refining volumetric estimates and potential commerciality for both the discovery and the full area. The Hermes discovery has helped to de-risk the nearby Poseidon and Orpheus structures, which represent attractive potential future appraisal targets to fully assess the potential of the area around block 31.

Now, the Stena IceMAX has now moved to Block 12 (Olympus Area) to drill the Zeus structure. Zeus is estimated to contain 10 -12 bcm of gross prospective unrisked gas resources in the A/B/C sands and will enable Energean to gather additional data to further refine resource estimates across the entire Olympus area, currently estimated to be approximately 58 bcm of unrisked recoverable resources.

As a reminder, Energean in May 2022 made a gas discovery within the Athena exploration well in Block 12. Preliminary analysis of the Athena discovery indicated recoverable gas volumes of 8 bcm (283 bcf/51 mmboe) on a standalone basis.

Energean has now exercised its option to drill a sixth well with Stena Drilling as part of the current drilling campaign. This well is expected to target the Hercules prospect, located on Block 23, offshore Israel.

Energean is also working to bring its Energean Power FPSO on the Karish field online. In early September, the company said it was weeks away from delivering the first gas from the Karish development project.