Oil & Gas Corporate News
Max Petroleum (LON:MXP) (BUY, £0.50) (MXP, 20p, ? (81.82%)) announced that the UTS-1 exploration well on the Uytas prospect in Block A has reached an intermediate depth of 300m with electric logs indicating 16m of net oil pay at depths of 60-76m in the Cretaceous Formation, with a potential 86m thick oil column present at depths of 60-146m. The Company has run casing over this portion of the well and will continue to drill ahead to a total depth of approximately 900m to evaluate its principal exploration target sands in the Jurassic and Triassic sections. The Company will test the shallow Cretaceous zone after evaluating the deeper horizons.
Comment: This was a make or break well for Max Petroleum and a lack of success would have raised a lot more questions for the Company. The Uytas prospect is a 4 way dip closure and success validates the charge model. The previous failures in the programme are most likely due to non-sealing faults invalidating the traps. The shallow depths raise the concern of biodegradation of the oil and therefore possible presence of difficult to move heavy oil; nevertheless the structure has been charged and is a valid trap that is likely to be also valid and charged deeper down, where the main objectives are at depths of 500-900m. Hence a great result for the Company.
Victoria Oil & Gas (BUY, £0.09) (VOG, 3.11p, ? (0.32%)) published an update on its reserves and resources potential at Logbaba, Cameroon. The update was completed by Blackwatch Petroleum Services Limited, which act as consultants to the Company. The Proven and Probable (2P) gas reserves in the Logbaba field are contained in Campanian and Santonian age sands of the Logbaba Formation. New structure maps were constructed based on correlations of the Logbaba sands incorporating new and old well data as well as existing seismic data. Remotely sensed imagery was acquired and analysed to provide a structural framework for Logbaba. Blackwatch has completed the Logbaba reserves review, integrating the recent well logs and well test data from the successfully drilled and completed new wells La-105 & 106 and the original four wells drilled in the 1950s. All six of the wells drilled in the Logbaba block to date have encountered significant gas intervals and all five wells that were tested flowed gas to…
