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Thursday, July 11, 2013
Gulfsands Petroleum reported that in June it contracted Romanian firm Prospectiuni to undertake seismic programs on the Rharb and Fes permit areas in Morocco. A high fold 3D seismic survey covering an area of about 220 sq km is being carried out over the south-western part of the Rharb permit area to assist in the further delineation of drilling targets for Gulfsands’ upcoming nine-well drilling program.
The company has engaged COFOR SAS, a drilling contractor and subsidiary of France’s Vinci group of companies, to provide an onshore drilling unit suitable for the drilling of a minimum of nine exploration and development wells in the Rharb Basin area. COFOR will shortly mobilize a drill rig to Morocco to commence drilling the first well in an initial five-well campaign starting in early September. This initial drilling campaign is expected to take about four months to complete. The 2014 campaign consists of at least a further four wells to be drilled on the Rharb and is scheduled to begin in Q2 2014
The second seismic program, which will capture approximately 650 km of 2D data, is designed to assist in the identification of additional drilling targets on the Fes permit and to more accurately define existing drill targets identified using the results of an earlier gravity survey program and legacy 2D seismic data. The cost of capturing and processing this seismic data is an estimated $14.5 million.
Gulfsands is planning to drill one well (and possibly a second) on the Fes permit area during 2014 using the data captured in this 2D seismic survey, which data should be available prior to the end of the current year. The first well in this proposed three-well program is planned to commence drilling during Q2 2014.
Mahdi Sajjad, the company’s CEO commented: “We are very pleased that the company has been able to begin its operations in Morocco so soon after the acquisition of these assets which was only completed in mid-January 2013. This has been achieved as a result of the excellent cooperation we have received from the management of ONHYM, our government owned partner in our activities in Morocco and the management of the Ministry of Energy and the commitment and important contribution of a number of our key technical and administrative personnel who we have drawn from our other projects in the MENA region to help get our activities underway as soon as possible and to ensure we establish a cost effective operation in Morocco. We are now very focused on making a success of our Rharb drilling program and to the early commercialization of the gas resources we are targeting.”
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