RNS23 Jul 2020 09:46
UK Oil & Gas PLC
("UKOG" or the "Company")
Entry into potential high-impact Turkish oil appraisal and exploration project
UK Oil & Gas PLC (London AIM: UKOG) is pleased to announce that it has signed a binding heads of agreement with Aladdin Middle East Ltd ("AME"), an independent oil company with 60 years of operational experience in Turkey, to take a 50% non-operated working interest in the 305 km² Resan Licence ("Licence"). UKOG will take an active technical role in a 5-well oil appraisal and step-out exploration drilling programme, which, Covid and weather permitting, is expected to commence this year.
The Licence lies within the SE Anatolian basin, a geological continuation of the prolific Zagros "fold-belt" petroleum system within the foothills of the Taurus-Zagros mountains in Iraq, Iran and Turkey, one of the Middle East's major oil producing areas. Multiple producing oil fields lie to the immediate west and south east of the Licence, containing significant proven recoverable reserves.
Material discovered resource potential
A June 2020 report prepared by Xodus Group Ltd ("Xodus") for AME calculates that two identified geological targets within the Licence's Cretaceous Mardin limestones, the undeveloped Basur oil discovery and the Resan "missed" oil pay opportunity contain an aggregate unrisked gross mean oil in place, or oil in the ground before extraction ("OIP"), of approximately 253 million barrels ("mmbbl"), with a significant high case (P10) gross aggregate OIP of 495 mmbbl.
The Company's and AME's evaluations of the available 1950s and 1960s well and geological data conclude that potentially significant moveable oil within the naturally fractured Mardin has been overlooked by prior operators in both Basur and Resan (i.e. missed oil pay).
An undrilled exploration target in the shallower Garzan limestones, Prospect A, adds further unrisked upside OIP potential of between 68-112 mmbbl in the mean and high case (P10), respectively.
Note that UKOG's internal evaluation sees further upside resource potential than is currently identified by Xodus.
The Basur discovery, made in 1964, whose primary target was the shallow Cretaceous age Garzan reefal limestones, recovered 600 bbl of oil to surface from deeper naturally-fractured and dolomitised Cretaceous Mardin limestones. Core and cuttings contained live oil. Of the oil to surface, 500 bbl were produced over a 6-hour test period, equating to an extrapolated rate of 2,000 barrels of oil per day ("bopd").
Similarly, wells drilled in the 1950s at Resan originally targeted the overlying shallower Garzan but found good oil shows within the Mardin, although short tests were inconclusive. As the Mardin's natural fracture potential was largely unrecognised at the time, it is AME's and the Company's view that the Resan wells were not adequately tested.
Both Basur and Resan were drilled before the potential of