Oil & Gas Corporate News
Max Petroleum (LON:MXP) (BUY, £0.50) (MXP, 14.0p, ? 0.0%) announced an operational update of its activities in the Blocks A&E Licence area in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The NARS-1 exploration well on the Narmundanak South prospect in Block E has reached total depth of 1,589 metres with electric logs indicating 4 metres of net oil pay at depths from 1,280 to 1,290 metres in the Triassic Formation with porosities ranging from 18% to 25%. A fluid sample taken from a depth of 1,283 metres yielded 32 degree API oil. The Company is running production casing in the well and expects to test NARS-1 for commercial viability in the next 60-90 days upon receipt of the requisite governmental approvals. The Borkyldakty Field has been placed on production after receiving final approval of the trial production project ("TPP") from the Kazakhstan regulatory authorities. The TPP, valid through March 2013, allows the Company to produce the field and drill additional exploration and appraisal wells in order to gather additional data necessary to prepare a full field development plan. The Company has returned the BOR-1 discovery well to production and is planning to drill the BOR-3 development well in June 2011 using the IDECO rig after it has finished the NARS-1 discovery well.
Ithaca Energy (LON:IAE) (IAE, 139.63p, ? 0.63%) announced the final production well on the Athena field has been drilled and fully cased. Development drilling has now been successfully concluded and the project remains on schedule for production start up in Q4 2011 at approximately 22,000 barrels of oil per day (gross), approx. 5,000 bopd (net to Ithaca), in-line with previous disclosure.
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) (TLW, 1314p, ? 0.92%) announced that the Banda-1 exploration well in the West Cape Three Points licence offshore Ghana has discovered oil in Cenomanian-aged reservoirs and that the Jobi-East-1 and Mpyo-3 wells, in Exploration Area 1 (EA1) onshore Uganda, have both successfully encountered oil in line with pre-drill expectations. The Banda-1 well, located 9.6 kilometres southeast of the Odum discovery in the eastern part of the West Cape Three Points licence, has encountered Cenomanian turbidites over a gross vertical interval of 300 metres. This interval contains over 100 metres of low porosity sandstone and 3 metres of approximately 40 degree API oil pay. Jobi-East-1…
