Statoil has started drilling its first onshore well in Algeria’s Hassi Mounia licence area in the middle of the Sahara desert after a major logistical effort to put facilities in place in the hostile hot climate. The HTJ 2 well is aiming to appraise a previously made oil discovery drilled by Algeria’s state oil company Sonatrach which penetrated an Upper Devonian oil reservoir with the HTJ 1 well. Statoil is aiming to appraise the find and test deeper Lower Devonian and Ordovician sandstone layers.
