Ireland’s Circle Oil has announced that it has won the onshore Grombalia permit located in Tunisia’s Cap Bon Peninsula
Circle Oil added that it will be the operator and hold a 100 per cent working interest in the new permit. It also has the right to apply for conversion to production licence areas in the event of exploration success, according to the company.
The licence reportedly covers an area of 2,820 sq km and is situated in an area that includes existing oil and gas field concessions including Cap Bon gas field, Belli oilfield and the El Manzah oilfield. The Beni Khaled producing oilfield concession, where Circle Oil is now a 30 per cent working interest with state-owned partner Exxoil holding the remaining 70 per cent, is entirely enclosed within the new permit.
Professor Green, CEO of Circle Oil, said, “We are delighted to announce that our competitive work program bid for the Grombalia permit in Tunisia has been successful. We believe this under explored, but highly prospective, area, if successful, should bring significant added value to both Circle Oil and Tunisia. We look forward to working together with the Tunisian authorities towards this goal.”
Other discoveries such as Zinnia, Bir Drassen and Tiref reportedly exist within or are close to the licence area in the North African country. The main targets are the fractured Eocene to Upper Cretaceous carbonates and Lower Cretaceous sandstones, although other plays may be developed following collection of further data.
Circle Oil’s work includes the acquisition of 2D and 3D seismic surveys followed by drilling four exploration wells within the first licence phase of three years. In addition, a block-wide study has already been conducted on existing data to provide an initial view on prioritisation of the targets to drill, the Irish oil and gas company said.
Estimates of in-place, pre-drill and unrisked resources on five separate structures prepared by external consultants range from 16mn barrels of oil equivalent to more than 200mn barrels of oil equivalent and totalled 480mn barrels of oil equivalent.
