LONDON (Alliance News) - Ophir Energy PLC Wednesday said it has started its USD18.0 million, two-well exploration drilling programme on its block in the western gulf of Thailand.
Ophir has already started drilling the G4/50-10 exploration well on the Soy Siam prospect on Block G4/50, which is the first of the two-well programme. The block partially surrounds Ophir's producing Bualuang oil field.
The G4/50-10 well is targeting Miocene sandstones that are the age equivalent of the producing reservoirs in the Bualuang oil field, located 15 kilometres to the north. The Soy Siam prospect has 25.0 million barrels of mean prospective resource and a 21% chance of success, said Ophir.
Once that first well has been drilled, the rig will move to the Parichat South West prospect, which has prospective mean resources of 25.0 million barrels of oil but with a higher chance of success at 32%.
"There is considerable additional potential in the event of success in either of these wells. Ophir has mapped six further prospects in the South Western sub-basin with total mean unrisked resources of 155.0 million barrels. These prospects and leads are highly interdependent in terms of risk and, in the event of success, there will be substantial de-risking across this play," the company said.
Ophir has regulatory approval to drill on 18 locations in the Thai block, providing "considerable running room in the play", it said.
Ophir shares were down 2.7% to 89.65 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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