London South East
By Joshua Warner
Circle Oil PLC shares rose on Wednesday after it said it has discovered gas at its latest and last exploration well in Morocco and said it reduced its drilling costs by 30% throughout its 2014 to 2015 drilling programme in the country.
Circle shares were up 6.7% to 5.20 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
The CGD-13 exploration well hit a 5.9 metre net pay of gas, flowing at 4.45 million
standard cubic feet of gas per day under flow test conditions. The well is the last of its 2014 to 2015 drilling campaign, and the sixth well to make a discovery.
The successful well is located 320 metres northwest of the closest tie-in point on the 75% Circle owned 55 kilometre pipeline to Kenitra. The well will be brought into production and produced through the pipeline to Circle customers in Kenitra.
Circle said it managed to reduce its costs by 30% per well over the life of that drilling campaign, which would have been partially boosted by the fall in oil prices which has flooded the market with excess rigs and equipment, bringing prices down for exploration companies.
Circle will now use the information gathered during the drilling campaign to begin planning an new campaign for 2016.
“The Circle geological team will review and integrate the well data from this campaign when planning the next campaign in Morocco, initially scheduled for late 2016,” it said.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
