US services company Baker Hughes has landed work on an upcoming drilling campaign in Zimbabwe targeting a potential “elephant field” discovery.

Australia-listed Invictus Energy revealed Friday it had awarded Baker Hughes an integrated well services contract at its Cabora Bassa project in Zimbabwe.

A letter of intent between the two companies was signed following the completion of a tender and evaluation process, with the contract expected to be finalised “within weeks”.

The award covers cementing, mudlogging, drilling fluids, tubular running, directional drilling and logging, installation of wellhead equipment and project management for Invictus’ upcoming drilling programme at Cabora Bassa.

Invictus is set to kick off a two-well programme in May this year using the drilling rig Exalo Rig 202, with the campaign to target the Muzarabani prospect, which Invictus claims is the largest undrilled conventional oil and gas prospect onshore Africa.

The company estimates the prospect to hold 8.2 trillion cubic feet of gas and 247 million barrels of condensate, or roughly 1.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent. If correct, this could result in the discovery of what is known as an “elephant field”, which are conventional oil or gas fields with a recoverable reserve of 1 billion boe or more, as defined by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Invictus also revealed Friday that it had appointed ERC Equipoise to carry out an independent prospective resource update for the Cabora Bassa project that will incorporate newly acquired and processed high resolution 2D seismic data and reprocessed 1990 vintage Mobil 2D seismic survey.

The Cabora Bassa project lies in SG 4571, which covers 250,000 acres in the most prospective portion of the Cabora Bassa basin in northern Zimbabwe. Invictus holds an 80% operated interest in the licence. – Upstream