Ivory Coast: Rialto Resumes Gazelle Drilling

Rialto Energy Limited, an exploration and production company focused on West Africa region, today announced that it has resumed drilling operations at the Gazelle-P3 ST Well, offshore Ivory Coast.

Since the last report, the stuck pipe was freed to a depth of 870 metres MD, a cement plug was set and a sidetrack started. As of 12:00 GMT 23rd April, the well is drilling ahead at 1302 metres MD. The next casing point is at 1538 metres MD.

Rialto had informed the market on April 1 that the well was drilled to a depth of 1070m, at which point the drill-pipe became stuck and during the process of trying to free the drill-pipe, mechanical problems with the rig equipment occurred.

The Gazelle-P3 ST 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.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff, April 24, 2012