88 Energy Ltd (LON:88E, ASX:88E) has provided an update on its operations in Alaska, where it has both conventional and shale interests within the Project Icewine acreage.
The company said that a 450 square kilometre 3D seismic exploration programme was completed on March 28, highlighting that the work was finished on schedule and within budget. It expects processed data from the first areas will be available in June.
These efforts are designed to identified and advance the conventional oil potential at Icewine, and significantly, the findings will support a potential farm-out a stake in the project and plans for a 2019 exploration drilling programme.
Eland updated investors on its reserves based lending (RBL) facility which, following the success of the Opuama-8 well, now puts the company in a stronger financial position. A re-profiling of the Opuama field's RBL, which is provided by Standard Chartered Bank, leaves the company with the same headline scope of US$35mln but the company notes that the borrowing base for the loan increases significantly to just over US$70mln, from US$40mln.
The new figure is based solely on production from four wells (Opuama-1, 3, 7 and 8), and the company currently has drawn US$27mln of the available facility - while Eland notes that its current cash position stands at US$35.6mln.
Echo Energy told investors that the rig has been mobilised for the planned three well programme at the Fracci??n D asset, onshore Argentina. The Quintana-01 rig is travelling around 250 kilometres by road to Fracci??n D and the mobilisation is expected to take three days.
At each well location, the programme will see the abandonment of the previously producing but now suspended oil zones, before the recompletion of discovered but uncompleted gas zones. The expectation is that each well programme will take about 10 days.
Lansdowne raised ?900,000 through a share placing, giving it sufficient capital to cover its costs for the Barryroe project until the group's Chinese farm-out deal completes. Some 69.2mln new shares are being sold at a price of 1.3p each. The placing investors will also receive share warrants, which can be exercised at 1.3p as well.
The Irish oil firm's farm-out deal sees Lansdowne selling half of its stake in Barryroe (its interest reduces to 10%) and the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter. In Friday morning's statement, LOGP told investors that it will now have on-going working capital though to mid-2019.
As well as the share placing, which has been organised by Brandon Hill Capital, the broker has also agreed to convert a ?326,911 debt into equity (at the same pricing as the share placing). Similarly, the LC Capital Master fund has agreed to switch a ?680,000 loan note debt into Lansdowne equity. It retains a holding of further loan notes, and it has agreed to extend the maturity to June 30.
Providence told investors it has secured an extension to the frontier exploration licence hosting the Newgrange prospect, off Ireland's west coast. The Irish authorities have now extended the first phase of the licence out to March 2019 to allow more time for the acquisition of new 3D seismic data over the crest of the Newgrange target. It is anticipated that this desktop work will the company to advance the planning of an exploration well.
"We are very pleased to be granted this extension to the Newgrange licence, which will allow for the acquisition of a new high resolution 2D seismic survey together with seabed data which may allow us to further de-risk the Newgrange prospect," said Dr John O'Sullivan, Providence technical director.
"These data will also facilitate commencement of the detailed planning process for the Newgrange exploration well."
United Oil & Gas told investors that a seismic acquisition programme has now begun at the Tullow Oil plc (LON:TLW) operated Walton-Morant licence, offshore Jamaica.
The company said in a statement that the Polarcus Adira vessel began data acquisition work on April 3 and the acquisition programme is expected to take around 8 weeks to complete. It explained that the work is designed to focus on advancing the 'high-graded' Colibri exploration prospect.
"We are very pleased with progress to date on our Jamaica licence and we look forward to seeing the initial results," said chief executive Brian Larkin.
Seismic processing at exploration permit (EP) 145 in the Amadeus Basin has produced excellent results, Mosman declared. The reprocessing of data from has confirmed the shallow multi-pay-zone anticline at EP145, similar to the reservoir zones at the nearby Mereenie oil and gas field and also revealed information at deeper levels.