Chariot Spuds its First Namibian Well

Chariot Oil & Gas Ltd.’s wholly owned subsidiary, Enigma Oil & Gas Exploration (Pty) Ltd., has commenced drilling its first well in its four to five well drilling program offshore Namibia with the spudding of the 1811/5-1. The well, on the Tapir South prospect, is being drilled using the Maersk Deliverer semi-submersible drilling rig on the company’s Block 1811A. The prospect has a 25% chance of success and a mean un-risked prospective resource potential of 604 million barrels of oil. In the event of success, the results of this well will significantly increase the chance of success on certain of the company's other prospects within the Tapir Trend. The well will be drilled to an estimated total vertical depth subsea of 5,100 meters and will now include extended drilling time to ensure that one of the deeper identified targets is drilled and fully evaluated. This deeper target is believed to be a carbonate section, age equivalent to the reservoir in recent sub-salt discoveries in the on-trend Kwanza basin offshore Angola. The drilling and logging operations are expected to take approximately 70 days and a further announcement will be made when the well results are known. The Tapir South prospect is part of the Tapir Trend where three prospects have been identified on a large ridge formed by a rotated fault block containing the potential carbonate target, draped by deep marine sediments with turbidite sandstone levels forming a stack of overlying targets. Tapir South is the southernmost of three culminations on the ridge and forms a focal point for charge migration from an adjacent basin in which excellent oil prone source rocks are believed to be present and currently generating oil. The second well to be drilled in the Chariot exploration program targeting the Nimrod prospect, the Kabeljou (2714/6-1), is now likely to spud earlier than previously reported. Petrobras, the operator of Block 2714 expects to secure a drilling rig in Q3. Paul Welch, CEO of Chariot, commented: “We are very pleased to announce the spud of our Tapir South well in the northern licence area which marks that start of a 4-5 well drill program running through to the end of 2013. The results of this first well will be invaluable to furthering our knowledge and understanding of the Namibe basin. Owing to the additional funding raised last month we can now fully explore the deeper targets within the prospect and we look forward to updating the market with the well results in due course."