Empyrean Regulatory News (EME)

5 Dec 2006 07:55

Empyrean Energy PLC05 December 2006 Empyrean Energy PLC ("Empyrean" or the "Company"; Ticker: (EME)) Project Margarita, Gulf Coast Texas USA --------------------------------------- • Empyrean to earn 44% Working Interest in Project Margarita• Shallow well program to commence mid December 2006• Deep high impact wells planned for 2007 AIM quoted Empyrean Energy PLC today announces that it has reached agreement with the Wandoo Joint Venture (Sun Resources NL - Victoria Petroleum NL - Wandoo Energy LLC) to earn a 44% Working Interest in Project Margarita, South Texas, USA. Project Margarita consists of a number of high impact deep prospects and also a number of lower risk smaller shallow prospects. The partners in Project Margarita have agreed to drill six of the shallow prospects first and then move on to three higher impact deep 30 to 200 BCF gas prospects in mid year 2007. Wandoo Energy LLC ("Wandoo") will oversee the project and associated companyAurora Resources Corporation ("Aurora") will act as field operator. Wandooand Aurora have a team of highly experienced industry specialists withexceptional Gulf Coast Texas experience. Much preliminary work has already been completed by the Wandoo Joint Venture,including the interpretation of 530 km2 of 3D seismic which forms the basis ofProject Margarita in South Texas. Over 60 leads have been recognised inprospective stratigraphic/structural settings at various depths ranging from1,000 to 4,000 metres. These leads have been systematically studied, refined andhigh graded by further seismic reprocessing and seismic attribute analysis, andin the case of the shallow leads, reservoir engineering data from nearbyproducing analogues has also been used. This has resulted in a prospectinventory which has a high probability outcome of success on drilling. Wells are expected to take 8-10 days to reach total depth and be logged withanother 2-4 days to run a completion and test if logs are positive. The InitialWells program is expected to commence on or about 18 December and run until theend of January 2007. The Final Wells program is planned to commence in earlyFebruary 2007 and be of a similar duration to the Initial Wells program.Development of any commercial discovery will be a matter of a few months as theproject area is crossed by a number of gas pipelines with access rights andcapacity available to tie into. Commenting today, Empyrean's Commercial Director Tom Kelly said "Empyrean isdelighted to be working with The Wandoo Joint Venture participants on ProjectMargarita and we feel the project has a very good balance of higher risk highimpact prospects that will be drilled in 2007 following the drilling of thelower risk shallow prospect program commencing mid way through this month." The information contained in this announcement was completed and reviewed by theTechnical Director of Empyrean Energy Plc, Mr Frank Brophy BSc (Hons) who hasover 40 years experience as a petroleum geologist. For further information Laurence Read/ Ed Portman Conduit PR Tel: +44 (0) 207 429 6605 / +44 (0) 7979955923 Empyrean Energy plcTel : +44(0) 207 182 1746 Imran Ahmad/ Cecil JordaanHB CorporateTel: +44(0) 207 510 8600 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange