Cisco Springs Update

7 Jan 2008 07:01

Nighthawk Energy plc07 January 2008 Nighthawk Energy plc Cisco Springs Update The directors of Nighthawk Energy plc ("Nighthawk" or "the Company") (AIM:HAWK), the US focused hydrocarbon production and development company, arepleased to announce that following completion of a further four commercial wellsat the Cisco Springs project, located in Grand County, Utah, an additional threewells have been added to the current winter drilling programme. Nighthawk holds a 50 per cent. working interest in the project and the operator,Running Foxes Petroleum Inc. ("Running Foxes"), the Denver based private energycompany, holds 50 per cent. An overall drilling and development programme of over 60 wells is ongoing. Todate, 28 new wells have been drilled resulting in 26 reported commercialdiscoveries. Major Drilling, a Salt Lake City based drilling company, commenceda seven well winter drilling programme in late October 2007. The first threewells from this programme, Cisco 7-8-1, Cisco 7-1-1 and Cisco 6-13-2, which wereall successful, were reported on 5 December 2007. The remaining four wells, Cisco 7-2-3, Cisco 6-14-1, Cisco 6-11-2 and Cisco6-15-4, all encountered commercial quantities of hydrocarbons in multiple payzones, flow tested while drilling and have been cased as future productionwells. All seven wells are currently being tied-in to the recentlycommissioned, Nighthawk and Running Foxes jointly owned production facilities atCisco Springs. As a result of this continuing success, a further three wells have been added tothe current drilling programme. Access to the new drill sites has beencompleted and drilling is anticipated to resume on 7 January 2008. The wells have been evaluated for conventional gas on 40 acre spacing and oil on10 acre spacing. The majority of the new commercial wells are gas producers,however a notable feature of this programme has been the discovery ofsignificant oil zones. Wireline log analysis of the final four wells of the programme, and the threepreviously announced wells, using Bowler JLog petrophysical software, showingformations, depth intervals, estimated hydrocarbons in place and total net paythickness are set out below: Well Formation Depth interval Hydrocarbons in place Net pay (feet) (feet) Gas (MMscf) Oil (Mbbl)Cisco 7-2-3 Dakota - Cedar Mountain - 667 - 1,324 489 - 146 Salt Wash Cisco 6-14-1 Dakota - Cedar Mountain - 744 - 1,414 252 - 85 Brushy Basin - Salt Wash Cisco 6-11-2 Dakota - Cedar Mountain - 787 - 1,430 285 - 80.5 Brushy Basin - Salt Wash Cisco 6-15-4 Dakota - Cedar Mountain - 673 - 1,359 219 - 101 Brushy Basin - Salt Wash Cisco 7-8-1 Dakota - Cedar Mountain - 562 - 1,173 159 345 59 Brushy Basin - Salt Wash Cisco 7-1-1 Dakota - Brushy Basin - Salt 636 - 1,291 149 183 89.5 Wash Cisco 6-13-2 Brushy Basin - Salt Wash 1,194 - 1,312 47 218 50 MMscf = million standard cubic feet of gas Mbbl = thousand barrels of oil The previously drilled discovery wells are currently being tied-in to thenewly-commissioned production facilities in order to increase sales of naturalgas throughout 2008 and beyond. David Bramhill, Managing Director of Nighthawk commented "The benefits of the2-D seismic survey shot over much of the Cisco Springs acreage in 2007 has beendemonstrated by the results of the latest drilling programme where our successrate is currently running at 100%. "Strong progress is being made across all our projects, including at therecently acquired Buchanan and Worden projects, where results from the initialtest drilling have been encouraging in respect of future development andpotential production in 2008." David Racher B.Sc (Hons) Geology, who is a consultant to Nighthawk and has over37 years of experience in the hydrocarbons industry and previously managed theLasmo plc onshore US portfolio in Kansas, Louisiana, South Dakota, Texas andWyoming, has approved the technical information contained in this announcement. Enquiries: Nighthawk Energy plc 01271 882160David Bramhill, Managing Director office@nighthawkenergy.netwww.nighthawkenergy.net Hanson Westhouse Limited 0113 246 2610Tim Feather tim.feather@hansonwesthouse.com Matthew Johnson matthew.johnson@hansonwesthouse.com Bishopsgate Communications Limited 020 7562 3350Dominic Barretto dominic@bishopsgatecommunications.com This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange