Tower Resources plc, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Neptune Petroleum (Namibia) Limited, expects formal notification from Repsol Exploration (Namibia) (Pty) Limited, the Operator of Namibia PEL0010, that the Rowan Renaissance Drillship will start drilling operations in Walvis Bay, Namibia by 25 April, 2014.
This is a little later than expected owing to prolonged acceptance-testing by Repsol in advance of it taking the Drillship on a three-year contract.
The Welwitschia-1 prospect which is targeting net risked recoverable resources of 496 mmboe to Tower’s 30% interest (based on the updated CPR – July 2013) and will intersect up to five separate reservoir targets ranging from the Palaeocene-Maastrichtian to the Albian Carbonate sequence at a potential total depth (TD) of 3,000m TVDSS. The Operator expects this to take up to 46 days.
During drilling there will be no updates to the market as this well is classified as a “tight hole”. Accordingly the Company will provide a comprehensive update only once operations on the Welwitschia-1 well have been fully completed and analysed.
Graeme Thomson, Tower’s CEO , commented: “We are very excited that the high potential Welwitschia well is to commence drilling in the coming days. This follows hard-on-the-heels of our announcement of a $32m placing, acquisition of exploration interests offshore South Africa, onshore Zambia and of an interest in Block 2B onshore Kenya where we expect to be drilling in late 2014. We are fulfilling the strategy we set out in mid-2013 to build a pan-African portfolio of high upside exploration licences combined with near-term material drilling opportunities.”
Press Release, April 22, 2014; Image: Rowan