PetroNeft Resources (PetroNeft), the owner and operator of Licence 61, Tomsk Oblast, Russian Federation, has bagged the state auction for a 100% interest in the Ledovy Licence No 67 also in the Tomsk Region.
The Ledovy licence area is located west of the Ob River in the main oil bearing part of the Tomsk Oblast. The licence has an area of 2,447sqkm and is surrounded by oil and gas fields. Two producing oil fields, Grushevoye and Lomovoye, containing about 90m barrels of C1+C2 reserves are located within the licence area, but are excluded from the licence.
However, two existing drilled structures, Ledovoye and Sklonavaya, included in the licence area, have previously tested oil. The Vasyugan-Raskino oil pipeline and electric power lines run through the middle of the licence area. There is a paved road and oil pipeline that runs to Strezhevoy through the northwestern tip of the licence area.
The company claims that exploration on the Ledovy Licence began in the 1950s with wells being drilled on large prospects identified by vintage seismic data. Modern 2D seismic data was subsequently acquired from 1980 to 2001. Russian registered C3 (possible) resources are currently 55m barrels.
A total of eight wells have been drilled on the licence. PetroNeft has reviewed the drilled and currently mapped undrilled structures and believes that there is an upside within existing discoveries, potentially by-passed pay and new exploration prospects within the block.
Two of the previously drilled structures, Ledovoye and Sklonavaya, have tested oil but have not to date been assigned reserves. PetroNeft believes that these discoveries have potential to form the basis of a future development project on the licence, but also intends to pursue an active exploration programme.
The licence is an exploration licence for five years but can be extended based on an agreed work programme. The discovered fields will convert into production licences once the discovery is registered.
The company said that the planned 2010 work programme will focus on the overall re-evaluation of all the previous data on the licence area. Well and seismic data will be reprocessed and the results of this evaluation used to acquire 750km of new seismic data, which will help to determine the exploration priorities for the licence area. It is also possible that some of the old wells could become workover candidates. This analysis will also be part of the 2010 work programme.
The licence is within Western Siberia and thus falls within the 2008 Area of Mutual Interest agreement between PetroNeft and Arawak Energy (Arawak). Under this agreement Arawak is entitled to participate in up to a 50% interest in the licence and will confirm its intentions by the end of January 2010. PetroNeft will remain as operator of the licence.