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Proactive weekly oil and gas news summary including Sound Oil, Fastnet Oil & Gas, LekOil and Wentworth Resources

Last updated: 03:00 23 Nov 2013 EST, First published: 04:00 23 Nov 2013 EST

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There was news of progress from Sound Oil (LON:SOU) investors this week.

The company is pushing forward with plans to develop the Casa Tiberi onshore gas project in Italy, and has confirmed the awarding of a key contract.

It has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project to local Italian firm TESI Srl. The three month contract is worth €300,000.

Following Sound Oil’s board approval and the award of the contract, it is anticipated that first gas will come from Casa Tiberi in early 2014.

Elsewhere, Fastnet Oil & Gas’s (LON:FAST) partner Kosmos Energy has revealed that the initial well in the 2014 Foum Assaka drilling campaign off Morocco is targeting 360 million barrels of oil equivalent of Pmean resources.

Planning is now underway for the Eagle-1 well, which is set for drilling in the first quarter of 2014 and will target a depth of 4,500 metres in a water depth of 600 metres.

Pmean refers to the average probability that the stated volumes exist.

US-listed Kosmos is operating the well, with oil major BP (LON:BP.) also now part of the venture after last month’s farm-in. Fastnet is selling a portion of its 18.75% stake in the offshore project.

Meanwhile, Lekoil (LON:LEK) shares surged on Tuesday after it and its partners unveiled a significant upgrade in the potential recoverable resources at the OPL30 licence, off the coast of Nigeria.

As previously reported, the Ogo 1 well targeting the Ogo prospect, where drilling is now suspended, uncovered a significant light oil accumulation, spanning 216 feet of stacked pay, and a side track was also successful.

Partnered on the licence with Lekoil are Optimum Petroleum 

Development Ltd and Afren (LON:AFR), whose shares also advanced on the news.

The demand for Wentworth Resources (LON:WRL) shares through its recent cash call is an endorsement of what the company has planned for 2014, a broker said this week.

In the coming months Wentworth is partnered alongside American major Anadarko in a potentially high impact drill programme onshore Mozambique.

In the meantime the group’s Mnazi Bay gas field in Tanzania moves ever closer to the opening of crucial sales route, a pipeline to Dar es Salaam, which will in just over a year from now transform the economics for the currently constrained field.

On Thursday morning, Wentworth revealed it will raise an extra US$6mln amid high investor demand after last month’s oversubscribed US$40mln placing.

Additional shares are now being sold. In fact, the follow-on placing, of 9.25mln new shares at NOK3.82 (about 39p or 62 US cents), was also oversubscribed.

The new oil field development technology at the heart of Enegi Oil’s (LON:ENEGI) new strategy can cut start up costs by as much as US$300mln, according to Shore Capital analyst Craig Howie this week.

In a note, focusing specifically on the Energi’s 50% owned joint venture ABT Oil & Gas, the analyst likens the production buoy technology to a ‘mini FPSO’.

The system comprises a semi-submerged structure, hosting typically un-manned processing equipment, and would be connected to sea-bed storage facilities that can in-turn feed shuttle tankers.

It can be connected to a number of wells, and is designed to process up to 20,000 barrels per day, with storage of up to 300,000 barrels of oil.

Canadian oil firm Mart Resources (CVE:MMT) is eyeing up a move to London's stock market next year.

The Nigeria-focused company’s chief executive Wade Cherwayko said the listing would harness London’s appetite for African investments.

Mart, which shelved plans to list on AIM in 2005, is currently in the middle of moving to Canada’s main market from its junior exchange.

Meanwhile, Mongolian oil explorer Petro Matad (LON:MATD) expects to identify at least two drilling locations from its recent 2D seismic acquisition.

The explorer completed the acquisition of 200 kilometres (km) of data on Blocks IV and V in Mongolia on November 19.

Preliminary analysis confirmed previous interpretation of initial brute stacks of seismic across the prospect area in Block V and subject to further processing should delineate at least two prospective drilling locations for 2014, it said.

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