Petroceltic International plc ("Petroceltic" or "the Company"), the upstream oil and gas exploration and production company focused on North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, today provides an update on its western Black Sea drilling operations where the GSP Prometeu rig has completed the first of two exploration wells planned to be drilled offshore Romania this year.
Following the drilling of the Cobalcescu South-1 well in Block Ex-28, the Prometeu jack-up rig has returned to its operations base in Constanta to conduct some unscheduled but necessary maintenance works. This has resulted in the deferral of the next exploration well in the drilling programme, Muridava-1 on Block Ex-27, which is now expected to spud at the end of the first quarter 2014.
The Muridava-1 well will be drilled on the same geologic trend as the existing Olimpiskaya and Eugenia gas discoveries and has multiple reservoir targets in the Eocene, Palaeocene and Cretaceous formations. The combined unrisked P50 prospective resources are 170 Bcf of gas on a 100% basis and the chances of success for the individual zones lies in the range of 30 to 45 percent. The well will be drilled to a total depth of around 2,500 metres and is expected to take less than two months to complete.
The Block Ex-27 partnership comprises Petroceltic Romania B.V, (40% equity and operator), Midia Resources S.R.L. which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sterling Resources Ltd (40% equity) and Petromar Resources S.A.(20% equity).
