LONDON (Alliance News) - Echo Energy PLC on Thursday said it has found a "significant" column of light oil on one of its wells in Argentina.
Shares in Echo were 19% higher on Thursday morning, trading at 14.65 pence each.
Drilling at the EMS-1001 well on Echo's Fraccion D licence reached a depth of 2,460 metres in the upper Jurassic Tobifera formation, finding both gas and hydrocarbons.
Echo has finished preliminary wireline log evaluation and has identified a "very significant" hydrocarbon column between 1,722 metres and 2,220 metres, which could represent an interval of around 500 metres.
The company is now running a final production casing before suspending the well for testing, and it hopes to test rig will arrive in July.
As a result of this potential find, Echo said it is now reviewing the testing and forward work programme it has planned.
EMS-1001 was the third well to be drilled in Echo's current campaign at Fraccion D, and the drill rig is now to move to the next well, CSo-111.
Chief Executive Fiona MacAulay said: "We are delighted initial interpretation of our third well suggests a material and potentially transformational light oil column in the emerging Tobifera play of the basin, exceeding our high case expectations.
"We can already consider results for this well to date to be very encouraging from a volumetric and value perspective. Testing is the critical next step to establish the effectiveness and deliverability of the reservoir and we caution that any conclusions prior to test results would be premature."
She continued: "The company will now take the time required to confirm the early interpretation of the wireline logs and design an effective test program with a view to confirming the scale of our new oil discovery."
Echo Energy (ECHO)