Horse Hill Licence Period Extended

RNS Number : 4538B

Solo Oil Plc

04 April 2017

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Embargoed until 7 am                                                             4 April 2017

SOLO OIL PLC

("Solo" or the "Company")

Horse Hill Licence Period Extended, Weald Basin, UK

Solo Oil plc, the portfolio oil and gas investment company listed on AIM, is pleased to announce that it has been informed by the operator, Horse Hill Developments Limited ("HHDL"), that the UK Oil and Gas Authority ("OGA") has consented to extend the current PEDL137 and PEDL246 Retention Areas ("RA") until 2021. The PEDL137 and PEDL246 RAs, which cover the entirety of the licences, will now expire on 30 September 2021 and 30 June, 2021, respectively. The Company holds a 6.5% net interest in the licences via its 10% ownership of HHDL.

The RA work programmes, now agreed with OGA, comprise; the planned Horse Hill-1 ("HH-1") Kimmeridge and Portland production tests, HH-1z Kimmeridge Limestone ("KL") and HH-2 Portland appraisal wells, 50 square kilometres of 3D seismic, 25 kilometres of 2D seismic in PEDL246 and a PEDL246 exploration step-out well. The RA for each licence can be further extended or modified subject to an ongoing minimum work programme agreed by the OGA.

Solo's Chairman, Neil Ritson, commented:

"Extending the time we can retain the entirety of the licence areas by four years whilst we test and appraise the discoveries made by the Horse Hill-1 well is a positive development as it considerably increases our flexibility in completing the work programme. Testing at Horse Hill will likely start in the second half of 2017 and is the next step in the evaluation process."

HH-1 Oil Discovery

The HH-1 Kimmeridge Limestone and Portland oil discovery well is located within onshore exploration Licence PEDL137, on the northern side of the Weald Basin, 3 km north of Gatwick Airport. As previously reported in February and March 2016, two naturally-fractured limestone members within the Kimmeridge section, known as KL3 and KL4, flowed dry, 40-degree API oil, at an aggregate stabilised natural flow rate of 1,365 barrels per day ("bopd") with no clear indication of depletion. The overlying Portland flowed dry, 35-37 API gravity crude at a stable pumped rate of 323 bopd. The Portland was produced at the rod-pump's maximum achievable rate and thus flow was constrained by the pump's mechanical capacity.

As previously reported in October 2016 and March 2016, an application for long term production testing and further appraisal drilling was submitted to Surrey County Council in October 2016, and is now scheduled to be decided at the Council's planning committee meeting in July 2017. Solo therefore envisages that these operations will commence in the second half of 2017 upon grant of the necessary remaining regulatory permissions.

Qualified Person's Statement:  

The information contained in this announcement has been reviewed and approved by Neil Ritson, Chairman and Director for Solo Oil plc, who has over 38 years of relevant experience in geology, resource estimation and the oil and gas industry.  Mr. Ritson is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), an Active Member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and is a Fellow of the Geological Society of London (BGS).

For further information:

Solo Oil plc Neil Ritson / Dan Maling	[phone]
Beaumont Cornish Limited Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker Roland Cornish	[phone]
Shore Capital Joint Broker Jerry Keen Beaufort Securities Joint Broker Jon Belliss Buchanan (PR) Ben Romney / Chris Judd	[phone] [phone] [phone]

 Glossary:

degree API	a measure of the density of crude oil, as defined by the American Petroleum Institute
discovery	a discovery is a petroleum accumulation for which one or several exploratory wells have established through testing, sampling and/or logging the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons
flow test	a flow test or well test involves testing a well by flowing hydrocarbons to surface, typically through a test separator. Key measured parameters are oil and gas flow rates, downhole pressure and surface pressure. The overall objective is to identify the well's capacity to produce hydrocarbons at a commercial flow rate
limestone	a sedimentary rock predominantly composed of calcite (a crystalline mineral form of calcium carbonate) of organic, chemical or detrital origin. Minor amounts of dolomite, chert and clay are common in limestones. Chalk is a form of fine-grained limestone
OGA	the UK Oil and Gas Authority
PEDL	petroleum exploration and development licence
Retention Area ("RA")	an area covering all or part of an onshore UK "14th Round New Model" Licence that can be retained until the expiry date without any relinquishment and subject to a work programme agreed by the OGA. Usually, as in the case of PEDL137 and PEDL246, the Retention Area covers the entire Licenced area
seismic	use of reflected and refracted sound waves generated at the surface to ascertain the nature of subsurface geological structure.  2D seismic records a two-dimensional cross-section through the subsurface collected using the two-dimensional common mid-point method. 3D seismic records a three-dimensional image through the subsurface using the common depth-point method.
step-out	a well designed to determine the lateral extent of a discovered hydrocarbon accumulation or play

 

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