LONDON (Alliance News) - Roxi Petroleum PLC shares dropped on Wednesday after it said it will sidetrack the problem-plagued deep well A5 at its flagship BNG contract area in Kazakhstan before it conducts a 90-day well test.
Roxi shares were down 18% to 11.42 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
The company began drilling the well in 2013 when core sampling revealed the existence of a gross oil-bearing interval of at least 105 meters. However the well was set back by a pipe getting stuck at the bottom of the well which the company can not remove.
It has therefore decided to side track the well from a depth of 4,000 metres which will take around one month to complete. Once that is finished, the company will be able to drill the well to full-depth, allowing it to conduct a 90-day well test at the end of the third quarter, it said.
The company had planned on conducting a 30-day well test before sidetracking the well, but the pipes required to complete the test failed to meet the company's standards, forcing the company to order replacement pipes which are on route and will be used now for the planned 90-day well test once the the well has been sidetracked.
"While we would have much preferred to know the results from a 30-day well test before sidetracking Deep Well A5, the failure of the pipes supplied provided an opportunity to deal once and for all with the stuck pipe at the bottom of the well," said the company.
The nearby Deep Well 801 has now been drilled to a depth of 5,050 metres and will now be cased. Roxi will analyse the well logs to evaluate whether there are any additional oil-bearing intervals.
By Joshua Warner; joshuawarner@alliancenews.com; @JoshAlliance
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