Continental Focus, International Reach

Upland Scores Tunisian Acreage

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Upland Resources’ application to exclusively explore and appraise the Saouf Permit onshore Tunisia have been accepted by Tunisia’s Hydrocarbon Consultative Committee (HCC). The Saouf Permit covers an area of 4,004 sq km and Upland will act as the operator, holding a majority stake with ETAP as a JV partner with back-in rights.

The company said that based on its technical work on the acreage it believes there is potential for very substantial quantities of recoverable gas within the permit area. Upland’s exploration plans are also partly de-risked by an existing gas discovery in the area made 50 years ago, before the advent of local gas markets.

The desirability of the acreage is further enhanced by the existing gas pipelines that cross the permit area: these currently have spare capacity and provide access to attractive existing local gas markets.

Upland has offered a work program that includes an initial new 2D seismic survey, which the company is fully funded to undertake, followed by drilling one or more new wells. Drilling of any wells is conditional on the results of the seismic survey.

Award of the license is subject to Upland lodging a bank guarantee, for which the company is also fully funded, and final approval by the HCC.

Steve Staley, CEO of Upland Resources, said: “As a team, we have several decades of experience and knowledge of exploring in Tunisia. We believe that Saouaf will form an important part of Upland’s portfolio and will be integral to our strategy of acquiring high impact, quality assets, as already illustrated by our farm-in to the Wick prospect. With the demand for gas supporting prices, I see this as an exciting opportunity for Upland and look forward to providing more details to shareholders in due course. This opportunity would fit well with the timeframe for the Wick well, which is to spud in September 2018.”


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