Akrake Petroleum, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lime Petroleum Holding and 89.74% indirectly controlled by Singapore-based Rex International Holding, is preparing to initiate oil production from the Sèmè field in offshore Benin, with start-up targeted for late January 2026.
The operator’s current development push on Block 1 centres on a three-well drilling programme at Sèmè. Using the Gerd jack-up rig owned by Borr Drilling, Akrake Petroleum started work in August 2025 on the first well in the sequence. The campaign consists of an exploration well, AK-1P, aimed at deeper hydrocarbon-bearing intervals H7 and H8 that have not yet been produced, and two horizontal producers, AK-1H and AK-2H, within the H6 reservoir unit.
Originally, the first oil was expected in the fourth quarter of 2025. That schedule slipped when drilling through the overburden above the reservoir proved more complex than planned. According to Rex International Holding, shale layers with challenging geomechanical properties in this section led to several stuck pipe events, requiring portions of the overburden to be drilled again and pushing the project timeline back.
During these operations, the drilling team gathered new geomechanical data and used it to refine drilling parameters. They have since drilled successfully through the problematic overburden in the AK-2H production well. Drilling the reservoir section of AK-2H is expected to commence this week, and the operator is again targeting first oil from the field toward the end of January 2026 once this phase is completed.
Key production facilities are already in place to support the planned start-up. The Stella Energy 1 unit, used as a mobile offshore production facility (MOPU), and the FSO Kristina, deployed as a floating storage and offloading vessel, were both contracted in April 2025, upgraded, and then moved onto location, where they are now positioned for production operations.
Block 1, which hosts the Sèmè field, extends over about 551 square kilometers in shallow waters of roughly 20–30 m depth off Benin. The field was discovered by Union Oil in 1969 and later brought onstream by Norway’s Saga Petroleum. From 1982 to 1998, Sèmè delivered roughly 22 million bbl of crude before production was halted in the late 1990s due to low oil prices.
