Gulf starts at Sheikh Adi-2 25/05/2012
Iraq-focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) has begun drilling at the Sheikh Adi-2 well in the Sheikh Adi block.
Signing of Serica Energy's $3 million (£1.9 million) licence agreement in Namibia has coincided with the award of two UK production licences.
The AIM and Toronto-quoted company says the Namibian Mines and Energy minister has signed an agreement awarding it exploration licences covering four blocks in the south-west African country's Luderitz Basin.
This licence provides for an initial four years of exploration and an extensive three-dimensional seismic survey and London-based Serica says it expects to drill the first well in the third or fourth year. As part of the agreement, the company is to pay the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR) $1 million cash and allott $2 million-worth of shares to the Namibian group, giving it a 3.28 per cent shareholding.
Meanwhile, the UK Department of Energy has offered London-based Serica (SQZ) two more production licences, one as 37.5 per cent participant in a group looking at four blocks in the southern North Sea, with Centrica as operator, and the other as 100 per cent owner and operator of a gas prospect in the East Irish Sea. Chairman Tony Craven Walker says Serica has begun talks with a potental partner in the Irish block and argues the Namibian agreement marks a 'strategic step change' for the company.
Investors must hope he is right. Floated at 95p in 2005, Serica's tightly-held shares have traded between 42.75p and 14.75p over the past year and now change hands at 21.25p, up 2.25p this morning, where they value the company at £38 million and offer speculative recovery potential for the bold.
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Iraq-focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) has begun drilling at the Sheikh Adi-2 well in the Sheikh Adi block.
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