W&T Offshore Discovers Oil In Gulf Of Mexico, Wins 14 Blocks

W&T Offshore, Inc. (NYSE:WTI) recently announced the discovery of oil in the deepwater Gladden Deep well, situated in the Gulf of Mexico.

The ownership interest of the upstream energy player in the discovery is 17.3%. W&T Offshore added that the discovery has been made from its first exploratory well for this year. Importantly, this well is among the 14 that have been set for the drilling project.

W&T Offshore added that it discovered 201 feet of net oil pay in the Gladden Deep well following the completion of drilling to a depth of 18,324 feet. The company added that the well is likely to come online by the December quarter of 2019 and the produced oil is expected to be transported to the Medusa spar, through the Gladden pipeline.

Along with the operational update, W&T Offshore announced the receipt of an award from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, allowing it to operate in eight deepwater and six shallow water blocks. Notably, the company was the highest bidder in 14 of the 15 blocks under the federal lease sale that was held on Mar 20, 2019.

With the addition of 14 blocks in its portfolio of upstream resources, W&T Offshore will be able to operate on an additional 69,000 gross acres. In those blocks, the company will explore with 100% working interest. The term of lease will be seven years in one of the deepwater blocks, while W&T Offshore will be conducting upstream activities in the other blocks for a term of five years.

Overall, the oil discovery and expansion of upstream asset portfolio is highly accretive to the company’s cashflow.

Headquartered in Houston, TX, W&T Offshore currently carries a a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Meanwhile, a few better-ranked players in the energy space include Apache Corporation (NYSE:APA) , Ecopetrol S.A. (NYSE:EC) and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation (NYSE:APC) . Apache and Anadarko carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) while Ecopetrol sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Apache has average positive earnings surprise of 6.6% for the last four quarters.

Ecopetrol is likely to witness earnings growth of 25.3% through 2019.

Anadarko Petroleum has average positive earnings surprise of 6.6% for the last four quarters.

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