Last week 88E also put out an update on the status of its Project Phoenix acreage.
The Alaskan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) approved a “unit application” for the company’s leases covering the central and western areas of Project Phoenix.
The “unitisation” news is important because it gives 88E tenure through to 2028 and provides for a clearer forward exploration plan over its ground at its Project Phoenix.
For a project area to be considered for “unitisation”, the department typically considers whether a particular area has the potential to host an oil and/or gas project.
It means that the Alaskan regulators consider that there is potential for the project area to contain “all or part of an oil and/or gas reservoir and potential hydrocarbon accumulations”.
Relying on the 2D and 3D seismic data available as well as both 88E and Pantheon's wells, the decision to unitise this part of 88E’s project is another independent tick of approval as to the prospectivity of its ground.
From rns 4. Prospects are subject to a phase risk (oil vs gas). Chance of oil has been assessed as 100% for all targets except for the Kuparuk Formation which has been assessed as 70%. Phase risk has not been applied to the unrisked numbers.