Oil and Gas Corporate News
Victoria Oil & Gas plc (BUY, £0.12) (VOG, 4.79p, ? 3.90%) provided an update on its appraisal and delineation programme in the West Medvezhye (West Med) oil, gas and condensate licence area in Russia. The block is located in the Yamal Peninsula in the Nenets region of Siberia and was independently assessed in 2006 by DeGolyer and MacNaughton (D&M) to have total prospective resources of approximately 1.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe). West Med is located adjacent to Gazprom's giant Medvezhye field that has already produced over 70 trillion cubic feet of gas. VOG's wholly owned subsidiary, ZAO SeverGas-Invest (SGI), holds a 20-year Exploitation Licence for West Med. Whilst VOG's principal focus has been the development and commencement of gas and condensate production at Logbaba in Cameroon which is scheduled for Q4 2011, SGI's technical team and consultants Blackwatch Petroleum Services (Blackwatch) have acquired data to carry out integrated multi-discipline studies in West Med. This work has involved integration of new data with previous seismic and well data to screen and firm up the prospects and leads identified by D&M. New data acquired in 2010 included 155 passive seismic points recorded by GeoDynamics Research S.r.l. (GDR) and 289 km lines of gas tomography data recorded by Exotrad Limited. The surveys identified direct hydrocarbon indications in six areas covering a total of 79 km2. Preliminary internal volumetric estimates by the Company, based on these passive seismic areas and regional well and seismic data for reservoir properties, indicate hydrocarbons initially in-place estimated at 400 mmboe by SGI and Blackwatch. Further to these positive results, in February 2011, the Company commissioned a seismic reprocessing and geological modelling study to be carried out, with the first phase completed in June 2011. Re-interpretation of the reprocessed seismic data has now commenced and will incorporate the passive seismic and gas tomography results. In addition to the subsurface technical studies, development studies have commenced for commercialisation of the large prospective resources and exploitation of the Well 103 discovery, which has C1 and C2 reserves, independently assessed, under the Russian classification convention of 14.4 million boe as approved by the Russian Ministry of Natural resources. Studies have commenced on well design and engineering for future appraisal and development well drilling planned for Q4 2012. The company is in discussions with international and Russian service companies and has compiled initial budgetary estimates for…
