Australia-based Pura Vida Energy has failed to find oil with its latest offshore exploration well in Morocco. This makes the firm the latest in a series of companies that have announced disappointing well results after exploration activities in offshore Morocco.

The company drilled to a depth of 6,150 metres without encountering oil and now plans to plug and abandon the well, according to a statement released on 11 August.

“Although this result is a setback, we will now renew our efforts in pursuing the prospectivity [prospects] in the Mazagan permit with the benefit of the information we have gained from this well,” says Damon Neaves, Pura Vida’s managing director.

Explorers have searched for oil reserves in Morocco since 1912, but more than a century later, the country is still looking for its first commercial discovery.

In March this year, US-based Kosmos Energy announced its first well in the Western Sahara had failed to find hydrocarbons in sufficient quantities to make the discovery viable for commercial development.

Kosmos Energy had previously said it believed the target basin could hold as much as a billion barrels of oil.

In the period between December 2013 and August 2014, at least four other unsuccessful explorations were made in the region.

In January 2013, Pura Vida entered into an agreement with PXP Morocco for a second well, which is due to see drilling start before September 2016.