Shares in Matra Petroleum (LON:MTA) slumped by 10% to 1.68p this morning on news that more work was needed to get production under way from wells on its Sokolovskoe Field near Orenburg in Russia. The company is now planning to sidetrack well-12, which was the original Sokolovskoe discovery well drilled in late 2007, and carry out cement work on well-13, which was the appraisal well that was spud in October 2009 but only completed in May this year. The news comes as a new competent persons report by Equipoise Solutions puts the contingent recoverable resources (2C) for Sokolovskoe at 15.1m barrels, with a net present value of $60-80m. Those figures are down from the 65m barrels that Matra had previously been working to. The company said that additional seismic work and more wells would be needed around the area of well-13 in order to bolster its contingent recoverable resources in the future.

At well-12, attempts to establish a circulation path between the oil and water zones that would allow cement isolation in the well have been unsuccessful. Following a technical review, the company concluded that further attempts to isolate water in well-12 were unlikely to be successful and therefore the well should be sidetracked some 50 meters from the existing bottom hole location where drilling will be halted within the oil zone (without penetrating water bearing formations) and then recompleted for production. A contract for this side-track is currently being finalised and the rig will be mobilised to the site within the next few days. This will be funded from existing cash resources and is estimated to take four to six weeks.

At well-13, contractual commitments of the workover rig from well-12 mean that another rig has been separately sourced to conduct remedial work. This rig is currently being mobilised to the site and the work is expected to take 2-3 weeks. Matra said the nature of the water influx in well-13 differed from that in well-12 and therefore cement isolation is technically more feasible.

Matra's managing director, Peter Hind said: “We are delighted with the results from the CPR which endorse our strategy to monetise the Sokolovskoe Field. The work conducted by Equipoise has also resolved the technical issues thrown up by the well-13 result. The geological review concluded that we have yet…

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