Rialto Ready to Resume Drilling Offshore Ivory Coast

Rialto Energy Limited, a private company focused on exploration in Africa, provides the weekly update on drilling operations at the Gazelle-P3 Well as at 06:00hrs, 16 April 2012 (GMT).

The Gazelle-P3 well was spudded on 12 March 2012 using the Transocean GSF Monitor jack-up drilling rig. The well is the first of an overall three well drilling programme on CI-202 that is anticipated to take six months to complete, together with testing.

The well was drilled to a depth of 1070m, at which point the drill-pipe became stuck. During the process of trying to free the drill-pipe, mechanical problems with the rig equipment occurred which have since been rectified by the drilling contractor, Transocean.

Drilling the 17.5” hole section is expected to commence in the next 24 hours.

Commenting on the drilling progress, Charlie Nieto, Chief Operating Officer, said: “Following repair of the drilling equipment, the Rialto and Transocean teams have worked together to resolve these initial operational issues. Operations will now continue with testing of  the well expected in around 45 days. In accordance with its policy of releasing weekly drilling progress reports, the company expects to issue a further drilling report on 24 April 2012, subject to any material events occurring in the meantime.”

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Source: Rialto Energy, April 17, 2012