Technical Drilling Campaign Difficulties Push Back Benin Field Start Up
December 24, 2025
Akrake Petroleum, Rex International's indirect subsidiary, has encountered technical difficulties during its drilling operations at Sèmè field off Benin, pushing back the production start beyond 2025.
Akrake Petroleum, owned by Rex's Lime Petroleum, started the drilling operations at Sèmè field in summer 2025, using Borr Drilling’s Gerd jack-up drilling rig.
The drilling is part of a 100-day three-well work program to redevelop the Sèmè field.
Scheduled to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2025, the drilling campaign was planned to cover two horizontal production wells in the H6 formation (previously developed), as well as a deeper vertical appraisal well to gather data from the H7 and H8 reservoirs, to facilitate the potential advancement to Phase 2 of the development.
In the December 24, 2025 update, Rex said the drilling campaign encountered further significant technical issues, and as such, the production from the field would not take place in 2025.
“Nonetheless, drilling operations are continuing at the moment to attempt to resolve these issues,” Rex said in a statement.
Akrake is the operator of the Sèmè Field in Benin, and holds approximately 76% working interest, with the remainder of the working interest held by the government of Benin (15%) and Octogone Trading (9%).
Following the completion of the drilling campaign, the contracted refurbished Mobile Offshore Production Unit (MOPU) is set to arrive at the Sèmè field, along with a Floating Storage and Offloading unit (FSO).
After installation of the MOPU and the FSO, the MOPU is planned to be hooked to the newly-drilled wells, and production is expected to start at initial production rates of approximately 15,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), Rex said earlier.
