Ireland’s PetroNeft Resources has announced a “significant” oil discovery in one of its two Russian licence areas.
The discovery was made at Sibkrayevskaya, in Licence 61 at Tomsk Oblast, Siberia.
PetroNeft holds a 100 per cent interest in Licence 61, a 4,991 square kilometre oil and gas licence; as well as a 50 per cent operating interest in Licence 67, which covers an area of 2,447 square kilometres.
Both licences are located in the prolific Western Siberian Oil and Gas Basin. So far, Licence 61 has been known to contain five oil fields—Lineynoye, Tungolskoye, West Lineynoye, Kondrashevskoye and Arbuzovskoye—with 25 prospects and leads under exploration. Licence 67 contains the Ledovoye oil field and numerous prospects and leads including the Cheremshanskaya prospect.
Initial drilling at Licence 61 produced 170 barrels of oil a day. PetroNeft said that the reservoir could hold significantly more than the 44 million barrels originally expected.
The discovery extends the area of known oil to the north-east corner of the licence area, improving the prospectivity of other structures in the area.
The discovery adds a sixth oil field to Licence 61, with PetroNeft saying it proves the validity of following up on re-interpreted well logs from old wells that show potential by-passed oil pay zones. It hopes to further appraise the Sibkrayevskaya oil field with a seismic programme and the drilling of at least one appraisal well in 2012.
Dennis Francis, chief executive officer of PetroNeft, commented:“We are delighted with the discovery at Sibkrayevskaya, a significant new oil field which is our largest single discovery to date in terms of reserves. This is an especially important discovery, because it proves our strategy of following up on previously drilled structures by re-interpreting old well data using modern software and techniques to identify by-passed pay.
“The two well exploration programme now commencing at Licence 67 is also based on re-interpreted data from old wells. We look forward to updating shareholders on the results of these wells later in the year.”
The company is planning to commence drilling at Licence 67 later this month. The mobilisation of the drilling rig to the Cheremshanskaya site has been completed and rig-up operations are underway. The well is targeting objectives at the Upper, Middle and Lower Jurassic horizons following up on previously drilled wells, with drilling and testing expected to take up to two months to complete.
The West Siberian Basin is the largest oil and gas producing region in the former Soviet Union, both in the geographical area it covers and the recoverable oil and gas that it contains. The basin covers an area of approximately 3.4 million square kilometres, which is more than twice the size of the state of Alaska.
Headquartered in Dublin, PetroNeft was established to develop oil assets in the Tomsk Oblast area.
