Circle Oil: Mahdia drilling imminent (Tunisia)

Circle Oil Plc, the international oil and gas exploration, development and production company, has announced the operational update on Mahdia Block, offshore Tunisia.

Plans are well advanced for the drilling of the Mahdia commitment well with long lead items prepared for shipment, main and sub contractor tenders issued with some awarded and others under commercial evaluation or awaiting ETAP approvals. Subject to final negotiation and Tunisian authorities’ approvals the drilling unit has been selected. A farm-out exercise is also underway with a number of companies signed-up to attend the data room this month with further promotion underway.

The licence is within the vicinity of many producing fields, including the Tazerka, Birsa, Oudna, and Halk El Menzel oil fields, and the Maamoura gas field. The most recent discovery, the Mahdia-2 well, located approximately 20 kilometres west of the Block, tested approximately 2,700 bopd from the Serdj carbonate reservoir. This is one of the several possible reservoir horizons proven by producing plays in the region.

The Mahdia exploration well provisionally designated El Medouini-1 is planned to test the stacked play potential of the El Mediouni prospect, including both the primary Birsa Sands target and the secondary fractured carbonates of the Ketatna and Abiod formations as well as the deeper Serdj carbonates. The Birsa Sands alone have an estimated pre-drill P50 case of 185 MMbbls STOOIP.(2) The El Mediouni-1 well will be drilled to a depth of up to 2,300 metres, targeting the stacked primary and secondary reservoir horizons between 1,000 metres and 2,100 metres in subsea depth. The recoverable prospective resources estimate for the El Medouini prospect is 46 MMbbls (2) for the Birsa objective alone, substantially larger than the recoverable commercial threshold for the area which sits at approximately 10 MMbo.

Prof. Chris Green, CEO, said:“Circle is now entering an exciting and busy operational period in all of its geographies. Drilling operations offshore Tunisia and onshore Oman approach and we await the end of our frustrating delays in Morocco and being able to start our multi-well drilling campaign.”

March 20, 2014