Murphy Oil Corp’s first two wells in a three-well exploration campaign offshore Côte d’Ivoire have turned up dry.
Caracal-1X, the second well, “will be plugged and abandoned as a dry hole”, the Houston, Texas-based oil and gas explorer and producer said in a brief statement Monday. Drilling reached a total depth of 8,534 feet.
The well is in Block CI-102. The earlier well, Civette-1X, is in Block CI-502. “Murphy, together with its partner Société Nationale d’Opérations Pétrolières de la Côte d’Ivoire (PETROCI), remains committed to moving forward with the Bubale-1X well in Block CI-709”, in a geological play independent from the first two wells, Monday’s statement said.
Murphy had encountered non-commercial quantities of hydrocarbons in the first well. “A key outcome at Civette is that we confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons in this frontier play – a meaningful success in early-stage exploration”, president and chief executive Eric Hambly said in a company statement January 19. “While Civette did not meet commercial thresholds, the well provided insights that strengthen our subsurface understanding for the potential of the [Tano] basin and inform the remaining prospectivity on the CI-502 Block”.
Murphy had placed 440-1,000 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe) gross resource potential on Civette, according to its investor presentation on January 7, 2026.
According to the investor presentation, the gross resource potential for Caracal and Bubale is 150-360 MMboe and 340-850 MMboe respectively. The third well is scheduled to be spudded this year.
The three blocks are among five held by Murphy in the West African country. The five, all in deep waters, are co-owned with PETROCI, the American company holding 85-90 percent operating interests. The licenses, acquired 2023, cover about 1.5 million gross acres in the Tano basin, according to Murphy.
Murphy was scheduled to submit a development plan for the Paon discovery in Block CI-103 to Ivorian authorities by the end of 2025, according to the company’s annual report for 2024.
Elsewhere, Murphy has scheduled two more spuds in Vietnam in 2026, both appraisal wells for last year’s Hai Su Vang oil discovery. The first appraisal well in the Cuu Long basin discovery was spudded in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to the investor presentation.
On January 6, 2026, Murphy reported that Hai Su Vang’s first appraisal well confirmed the discovery as “significant”.
“The updated midpoint of recoverable resources for the primary reservoir is towards the high end of our previously communicated range of 170-430 MMboe and the high end of the new range now exceeds 430 MMboe”, Murphy said. “Additionally, results from the shallow reservoir provide recoverable resource upside not included in the previously communicated range.
“Additional appraisal wells are necessary to further refine the range of recoverable resources for both reservoirs”.
The Hai Su Vang-2X appraisal well encountered 429 feet of net oil pay across the same two reservoirs where the Hai Su Vang-1X discovery encountered about 370 feet of net oil pay, Murphy said.
To contact the author, email jov.onsat@rigzone.com
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