Commencement of Drilling

24 Jul 2006 07:02

Hardy Oil & Gas plc24 July 2006 For Immediate Release 24 July 2006 Hardy Oil and Gas plc ("Hardy" or "Company") Commencement of Drilling Hardy Oil and Gas plc (AiM: HDY), the oil and gas exploration and productioncompany with significant interests in India, is pleased to report thecommencement of its two well drilling programme on Block CY-OS/2 in the CauveryBasin, offshore the east coast of India. The first exploration well commenced drilling on 23rd July 2006. The Fan E-1well is located in approximately 90m of water (295 ft) and is being drilled bythe Deep Driller-1 Jackup rig. With a total depth of approximately 2,500m theFan E1 well will be terminating within the Precambrian Basement. The primarytarget consists of sands within a potential Eocene fan system. The second exploration well (Fan A-1) will commence upon completion of Fan E-1.The Fan A-1 well has a target depth of approximately 4,500m. The primary targetis a Campanian slope fan and the secondary target is the Turonian sands. Upon completion of the CY-OS/2 drilling programme the Deep Driller-1 Jackup rigis expected to move to the GS-OSN-2000/1 block in the Gujarat-Saurashtra basinoff the west coast of India. Reliance Industries Limited is the operator of thisblock, in which Hardy has a 10% working interest. Hardy is the Operator of the CY-OS/2 block, which is located approximately 12kmfrom the east coast of India. Hardy has a 75pc equity share in the block withGAIL (India) Limited holding the remaining 25pc. Given that CY-OS/2 is a preNELP (New Exploration Licence Programme) PSC, in the event of a commercialdiscovery ONGC has an option to "back-in" to the block for 30pc. Results from the two wells are expected to be available in the fourth quarter of2006. For further information please contact: Hardy Oil and Gas plc 020 7471 9850Sastry Karra, Chief ExecutiveYogeshwar Sharma, Managing Director Arden Partners plc 020 7398 1632Richard Day Buchanan Communications 020 7466 5000Bobby Morse This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange