Cairn Energy (LON:CNE) has started drilling on two wells offshore Greenland, embarking on one of the main stages of its 2011 exploration campaign. The AT-7 well in the Atammik block, around 160 kilometres offshore Nuuk in west Greenland and the LF-7 well in the Lady Franklin block 300 kilometres offshore Nuuk, have now both started operating.
Wood Group (LON:WG) said that 65.9 million shares were tendered and will be purchased by J.P. Morgan Cazenove at 625 pence per share for a total cost of £411.9 million. This represents 12.2 percent of the company’s issued capital.
FTSE 250 oil and gas firm Salamander Energy (LON:SMDR) has completed a debt refinancing that the firm believes reflects the “significant” cash flow that the group is generating. The facility is a US$325 million seven-year senior and junior ‘reserve-based lending facility’ that was arranged with BNP Paribas and Standard Chartered as coordinating banks. Lead arrangers in the facility also include IFC, Crédit Agricole, Natixis, ING, ANZ and Standard Bank. This week, Salamander Energy executed an agreement to farm-out a 20 percent interest in Block 101-100/04, Offshore Northern Vietnam to JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corporation. Block 101-100/04 is operated by Salamander and contains the Cat Ba oil prospect that will be tested with the CB-1X well in Q3 2011. JX-NOEX will earn a 20 percent working interest in Block 101-100/04 from Salamander through funding a promoted cost of the CB-1X well.
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) announced plans for a secondary listing of its shares on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and an offering of 4,000,000 Tullow shares in Ghana. The share price for the offer will be announced on Monday 13 June 2011.
Dragon Oil (LON:DGO) has completed its latest development well in the Caspian Sea, offshore Turkmenistan. The Dzheitune (Lam) B/155 development well – the sixth to be drilled from the B platform – has been completed on a dual production basis.
UK-focused hydrocarbons explorer EnCore Oil (LON:EO) says it will need to conduct further appraisal drilling in order to understand the potential of the two Channel systems it has found at its Cladhan discovery now that it has completed its initial four-well drill programme.
Falklands operating explorer Desire Petroleum (LON:DES) revealed that several directors have upped their stakes in the company after the company reported positive results of seismic exploration. On Tuesday, Desire reported preliminary results from the recently completed 3D seismic programme, which was carried out alongside Rockhopper Exploration (LON:RKH), expecting the prospect inventory to grow as the data is interpreted.
Empyrean Energy (LON:EME) followed up the recent good news that energy giant Marathon Oil Corporation had become its partner at the Sugarloaf Project in southern Texas with an upbeat trading statement this week that showed revenue from its US production assets had increased significantly over the past six months.
Ascent Resources (LON:AST), the Europe-focused oil and gas explorer and developer, said the outlook for 2011 and beyond is highly encouraging as it reported its final results for 2010 this week.
“Having proved up our core portfolio we are now focused on extracting value from it and, in line with this, aggressive work programmes are underway,” said the firm’s chairman John Kenny.
Shares in Empyrean Energy (LON:EME) jumped by more than 10 percent Thursday morning after it was announced that Marathon Oil Corporation – the US’s fourth-largest integrated energy company – agreed to pay $3.5 billion for Hilcorp Energy’s assets in the Eagle Ford shale trend in Southern Texas.
Gulfsands Petroleum (LON:GPX) said that while the Abu Ghazal-1 (AGZ-1) exploration well on Block 26 in Syria encountered potentially significant hydrocarbon columns, a series of tests recovered sub-commercial quantities of heavy/viscous oil. The well has now been suspended pending detailed analyses of well results.
Leni Gas & Oil (LON:LGO) has had the first exploration period of its 10 percent interested Malta Area 4 (Blocks 4,5,6,7) production sharing contract (PSC) extended for 18 months. Leni’s partner in the PSC, Mediterranean Oil & Gas (LON:MOG), said that the extension will allow to progress the analysis of the acreage and “hopefully identify attractive drilling targets”.
Solo Oil (LON:SOLO) relayed a statement from joint venture partner Reef Resources (CVE:REE), which expects the completion rig to arrive at the site of the Ausable# 5 well in Canada early next week.
Range Resources (LON:RRL,ASX:RRL) confirmed that it has now completed the deal to take full ownership of its assets in Trinidad.
Chariot Oil & Gas (LON:CHAR) is on track to spud its first well after undertaking a massive fundraising last month to fund the planned exploration activities in the current year. Gross mean prospective resources have recently been increased to 15.5 billion barrels, including a drill ready inventory of 16 prospects. One of them is the “game changing mega structure” Nimrod with gross mean unrisked prospective resource volume of 4.6 billion barrels and an estimated 25 percent chance of success.