Operational Update –Mengo-Kundji-Bindi (MKB), Republic of Congo (Brazzaville)
Panoro Energy ASA ("PEN", OSE ticker code), the independent oil and gas company with assets in West Africa and Brazil is pleased to provide an update on the ongoing operations in Mengo-Kundji-Bindi ("MKB"), Republic of Congo (Brazzaville).
The KUN-203 well was the third of up to six wells to be drilled in this new drilling campaign. The well was vertically drilled to a location directly below the Kundji-200 drilling platform and encountered the top reservoir of the Kundji field on prognosis at 1,288 meters. The well was drilled to a final measured depth of 1,697 meters (1,582 meters TVDSS), which included coring approximately 83 meters of the reservoir, before running logs and installing a 7” casing across the reservoir. The logs confirm that the reservoir is oil-saturated over a gross vertical interval of 134 meters with a net oil pay of 27 meters. A further 48 meters of Mengo sandstone was encountered with lower resistivities and this zone is assumed to be water bearing.
The KUN-203 log results correlate well to the results of the recently drilled KUN-201 and KUN-202 wells and together these wells have improved the confidence in the reservoir distribution model for the Kundji field south of the KUN-4bis and KUN-5 production wells. The KUN-201 well had a gross vertical Mengo sandstone thickness of 182 meters which was fully saturated to the base of the reservoir and with a net oil pay of 57 meters. The KUN-202 well had a gross vertical Mengo sandstone thickness of 175 meters which was oil-bearing over the top 129 meters with a net oil pay of 52 meters and is assumed to be water bearing over the lower 46 meters. The average net pay found in these three wells is higher than was assumed for the pre-drill assessment and the pilot program to date has thus increased the Panoro’s oil in place assessment when compared with Panoro’s pre-drill estimates.
Operations to perforate and hydraulically fracture two zones in KUN-203 have also now been conducted and the completion string has been run. The well was opened up and oil was flowed to surface. Over a period of around 6 hours, the wellhead pressure decreased to zero and during this period some proppant was also produced from the well. The operations are being reviewed by the operator to establish the reasons for the production decline. In the meantime the rig has moved to the KUN-201 well before moving onto the KUN-202 well. Once the fraccing and completion of these wells have been conducted, drilling operations will resume starting with KUN-204 later in Q1-2012.
The MKB permit is a 700 km2 license onshore in the Republic of Congo. The Mengo, Kundji and Bindi fields contain light (32° API) oil in low permeability Lower Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs and had a total of six producing wells drilled by Elf in the 1980's and 1990's. The permit was reissued to Société Nationale des Pétroles du Congo (“SNPC”) and partners in 2009. Panoro Energy holds 20% in the license.
For further information, please contact:
Jonas Gamre, Finance & Investor Relations Manager
Tel: +47 23 01 10 02
Cell: +47 971 18 292
Email: jonas.gamre@panoroenergy.com
Please visit www.panoroenergy.com for more information.