Oil & Gas Corporate News
Gulf Keystone Petroleum (LON:GKP) Ltd (BUY, 275p) (GKP, 137.8, ? 1.7%) announced that the Ber Bahr-1 Exploration Well has spudded on the Ber Bahr block in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq on Monday, 10th October 2011. Ber Bahr-1 is the first exploration well to be drilled on the Ber Bahr block, which covers an area of 208 km² and lies to the north-west and on trend with the Shaikan and Sheikh Adi blocks operated by Gulf Keystone. Ber Bahr-1 will target prospective intervals in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic with a planned total depth of approximately 2100 meters. The Operator's resource estimate for the Ber Bahr block is 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent-initially-in-place. The adjacent Shaikan is a major discovery with independently audited gross oil-in-place volumes of 4.9 (P90) to 10.8 (P10) billion barrels, while it is estimated that Sheikh Adi holds between 1 (P90) and 3 (P10) billion barrels of gross oil-in-place. Gulf Keystone has a 40% working interest in the Ber Bahr block operated by Genel Energy International Limited, which holds a 40% working interest in the block. The Kurdistan Regional Government has a 20% carried interest in the Ber Bahr Production Sharing Contract.
Rockhopper (LON:RKH) Exploration plc (BUY, 600p) (RKH, 169.8, ? 6.2%) provided an update on the 14/10-8 exploration well (the "Well"). The Well encountered good quality thick reservoir packages for all three targets including the Sea Lion Main Complex (?SLMC?), Casper and Kermit; however, all three packages were water wet. As planned, the well will be plugged and abandoned. The Company believes that the Well penetrated a relatively restricted area of the SLMC that appears to be separated from the rest of the SLMC by the fault to the north. The thickness of the reservoir encountered in the well has increased the Company's confidence that good quality reservoir is likely to be present in other relatively low amplitude areas within the SLMC. Following wells 14/10-6 and 14/10-7 the Company has undertaken a review with its technical consultants and as a result has refined its methodology for the depth conversion of seismic data over Sea Lion. This revised method proves an improved fit to all of the wells and provided an accurate prediction from 14/10-8. It also brings an increase in gross rock volume above the…
