Rialto Drills Ahead at Gazelle-P4 Well (Ivory Coast)

Rialto Energy Limited provides a weekly update on drilling operations at the Gazelle-P4 Development Well, offshore Côte D’Ivoire as at 10:00hrs, 31 July 2012 (GMT).

Since the last week’s spudding, the well has been drilled to 538m MDRT.  Current operations are drilling ahead to the 20″ casing point at 550m MDRT.

The company expects to issue a further drilling report on 8 August 2012, subject to any material events occurring in the meantime.

The well was spudded on 25 July 2012 using the Transocean GSF Monitor drilling rig.

Gazelle-P4 is testing the oil potential of the UC-2 and UC-4 oil reservoirs as well as the gas potential of the UC-3, UC-5, LC-1 and LC-2 gas reservoirs discovered by the IVCO-12 and IVCO-21 wells.

The Gazelle-P4 well is expected to take approximately 45 days and is budgeted to cost US$28 million to drill and test, which Rialto is fully funded for from existing cash reserves.

The Gazelle-P4 well follows the drilling and testing of the Gazelle-P3 ST1 and Gazelle-P3 ST2 wells. Gazelle-P3 ST2 successfully flowed hydrocarbons from separate sands in the Upper Cenomanian reservoir (UC-1) and Gazelle-P3 ST1 which increased the Lower Cenomanian gas reservoir (LC-2), and significantly de-risked the greater Condor gas prospect.

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Press Release, August 2, 2012