22 Oct 2010 10:13
22 October2010
Urals Energy Public Company Limited
("Urals Energy" or the "Company")
AGM and Operational Update
Urals Energy, the Russian focused oil & gas exploration and production company, announces that all of the resolutions put to shareholders at the Annual General Meeting held earlier today have been passed.
Alexei Maximov, CEO, gave the following update to the meeting:
Production
Current production remains unchanged at 2,320 BOPD.
Petraco update
As announced on 7 October 2010, Petraco Oil Company Limited ("Petraco") agreed to delay the date of the first repayment instalment as part of the debt restructure agreed with Petraco, from 30 September 2010 to 15 November 2010. This variation has been agreed by Petraco as a result of the loading of a second tanker at Arcticneft by the Company being delayed. The Company is confident in its ability to meet the revised instalment deadline.
Tanker delivery
The next tanker is currently being loaded and it is anticipated that this is likely to be shipped by the end of October 2010.
Side-tracking of well 35b
The Company is experiencing difficulties with the side-tracking of well 35b. Whilst drilling through the Borskiy horizon, damage occurred to the wellbore walls of the side track part. As a result, that section of the well had to be closed and the drilling of a parallel section re-commenced from a depth of 1106 meters. The current depth of this new side track section is approximately 1370 metres and a further 150 meters are to be drilled. The Company anticipates that, provided it does not experience any further difficulties, the side-tracking of this well should complete over the course of the next week and that production will commence 10 days after completion of the side-tracking. Further announcements regarding the progress at this well will be made as appropriate.
Geological studies at Arcticneft
The Company has completed the first stage of its geological study at Arcticneft. The Company view the first results as encouraging and showing a potential positive upside in the development of the existing oil field, as well as a possible upgrade of the reserves from Probable to Proved. The Company plans to test these findings during 2011 and the results will be announced when appropriate.
General
During the current financial year the Board and Management have worked towards ways of strengthening the Company's Balance Sheet, resolving many of the historic negative legacy issues and, in doing so, placing the Company on a more stable footing. The Board and Management is also looking at ways through which it can streamline the Company's operations and utilise the Company's assets in the best possible way. Moving forward, various alternative growth and expansion opportunities are being considered, but these will only be actively pursued where the Board considers them to be clearly beneficial to the Company. Having gone through some difficult times over the last few years, the focus is now on being a successful operator and the Company welcomes the ongoing support of its investors.
Enquiries:
| Urals Energy Public Company Limited | +7 495 795 03 00 |
| Alexei Maximov |
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| Grigory Kazakov |
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Allenby Capital Limited |
+44 (0)20 3328 5656 |
| Nick Naylor Alex Price |
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| Pelham Bell Pottinger | +44 (0)20 7861 3232 |
| Mark Antelme |
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| Jenny Renton |
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ENDS