Akrake Petroleum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lime Petroleum Holding, which is an 89.74 percent subsidiary of Singapore’s Rex International Holding, has encountered technical difficulties during its drilling activities at a field off the coast of Benin. The company, operating at the Sèmè field using Borr Drilling’s Gerd jack-up drilling rig, embarked on drilling operations at the first of three wells in August 2025 to bring the development project in Block 1 back to life.
In its most recent update on the drilling activities, Rex confirmed that the drilling campaign experienced further significant technical issues. As a result, production will not take place in 2025 as originally planned. However, the company stated that drilling operations are continuing at the moment to attempt to resolve these issues.
The Sèmè field in Block 1 covers 551 square kilometers in shallow water ranging from 20 to 30 meters. Akrake Petroleum Benin holds a 76 percent interest in the field and acts as the operator. The delivery of the mobile offshore production unit and the dry docking of the floating storage and offloading unit, contracted in April, were previously on schedule for the start of production in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Discovered by Union Oil in 1969, the Sèmè field was first developed by Norway’s Saga Petroleum, producing around 22 million barrels of oil between 1982 and 1998, before production was stopped due to low oil prices in the late 1990s. The current redevelopment effort aims to bring this historic field back into production after nearly three decades of dormancy.
Source: offshore-energy.biz