Chariot Oil & Gas Limited, the Atlantic margins focused oil and gas exploration company, announces that its wholly owned subsidiary, Chariot Oil & Gas Investments (Morocco) Limited, has agreed with the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (“ONHYM”) a six month extension for the first phase of exploration on its Loukos, Casablanca and Safi licences, offshore Morocco, which will be valid until 11 January, 2014.
The award of this extension remains subject to the final approval of the Moroccan Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Ministry of Finance.
In order to ensure that the Company has time to gain the best possible description of its licences prior to moving into the next phase of exploration, Chariot is reprocessing and interpreting 11,000km of 2D seismic data across all of its acreage offshore Morocco.
Both the total amount of this work and the portion of it attributable to the Loukos, Casablanca and Safi licences exceeds the initial commitment within these licence areas during this phase. Whilst the Company’s Rabat Deep licence has an initial exploration period of three years, the Loukos, Casablanca and Safi licences were transferred to the Company, as detailed in October last year, with six months left in the initial phase.
As a result, Chariot (75%) and its partner ONHYM (25%) will enter into the extension on these licences to allow adequate time to undertake this work and optimise the understanding of the acreage. Once complete, this will enable Chariot to determine the next steps on these licences.
[mappress] Press Release, June 11, 2013