Uruguay Offshore
Eni, YPF's partner offshore Uruguay, will join APA Corporation in drilling the first exploration well in Uruguayan waters since 2016. Drilling is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2027 on block OFF-6, which APA operates and which borders OFF-5, the block Eni runs in partnership with YPF, Argentina's state-controlled oil and gas company.
The rig is already lined up. As Shale24 has learned, offshore driller Noble Corporation reported that its Noble BlackHawk drillship was awarded a one-well contract with Apache in Uruguay, with an estimated duration of 50 days and a value of approximately $25 million, excluding mobilization and demobilization fees.
In August, APA signed an agreement with Eni under which the Italian energy company enters OFF-6 as a strategic partner with 40%, while APA, the Houston-based parent of Apache, will retain 60% and operatorship. The key detail is that Eni will fund most of the well. Shale24 reported the deal when Eni took 40% of OFF-6.
Across the block boundary, Eni has operated OFF-5 with 50% since late August, while MIWEN, YPF's subsidiary, holds the other 50% as a non-operating partner. Eni took over operatorship after approval by the Uruguayan authorities and the signing of the agreement with ANCAP, Uruguay's state oil company, which made effective the transfer agreed in November 2025. Shale24 reported at the time how Eni took over operatorship of OFF-5 while YPF stayed on as a partner. Eni is thus present in both adjacent blocks: it runs the one it shares with YPF and will pay for a large part of the first well on the neighboring block.
APA CEO John Christmann confirmed the plan on the company's third-quarter earnings call: "In Uruguay, we expect to spud our OFF-6 well with Eni in late 2027." Asked by an analyst, he said the company had signed the contract with Noble for the BlackHawk and that Eni would cover most of the well costs.
Testing the Petroleum System That Worked in Namibia
Tracey Henderson, APA's executive vice president of exploration, explained what the company is after. The target is a Cretaceous deepwater depositional system that has worked in several places along the Atlantic margins, "most notably Namibia, which is our analog for this and the conjugate margin," she said. Henderson described the well as a "petroleum systems test on the Latin American side for what has worked on the African margin," adding that it is a big well but that APA is excited to drill it and very happy to have Eni as a partner.
The conjugate margin is the strip of the South American shelf that was joined to the African shelf before the Atlantic Ocean opened. That geological hypothesis underpinned the offshore map Uruguay completed with six oil companies across seven blocks.
For ANCAP, APA's well will be the fourth exploration well offshore Uruguay, after Lobo, Gaviotín and Raya X-1. In August, APA itself said that Raya, drilled in 2016 and the basin's only deep well, had not been drilled deep enough. According to APA, the OFF-6 contract, signed in 2023, covers some 4 million acres and requires it to drill one exploration well. The company also operates OFF-4 with 50%, under a contract signed in February 2024.
What the BlackHawk Finds Will Also Be Read on YPF's OFF-5
For YPF, OFF-6 is the closest benchmark. When it closed the deal with Eni, the company reported that OFF-5 covers some 17,000 square kilometers, with water depths of up to 4,100 meters, about 200 kilometers off the Uruguayan coast. According to Eni, the block is in its first exploration period, and studies are underway to mature its potential, to which the Italian company will apply its proprietary technologies.
The Uruguay alliance is part of a broader relationship. Eni reported more than a year ago that YPF had chosen it as preferred operator for its exploration projects in Uruguay, after selecting it as a strategic partner for one phase of Argentina LNG, YPF's phased liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project. In that project, YPF, Eni and XRG, ADNOC's international investment arm, set Nov. 26 for the signing of the final investment decision.
While OFF-5 is still at the study stage, OFF-6 already has a rig and a drilling window. The petroleum system test Henderson described will take place on the block next to YPF and Eni's, on the same margin that faces Argentina's offshore, where the state has resumed tendering with the bidding round for the CAN_200 area.
The Apache contract is among the awards Noble reported with its third-quarter results, totaling approximately $560 million since its July fleet status report. The same list includes a four-well contract with TotalEnergies in Nigeria, a five-well contract with Tullow in Ghana and a two-well contract with Occidental in Peru, which will start in the second quarter of 2027.
The contractor said its fleet of 23 marketed floaters was 66% contracted in the third quarter, up from 64% in the previous quarter, and that its contract backlog stands at $6.7 billion.
Uruguay joins that list with a single 50-day well. The window is set for the fourth quarter of 2027, with APA as operator, Eni as main funder and, on the next block over, YPF awaiting the result.