Pathfinder Hydrocarbon Ventures Limited has signed an exclusive option agreement with Oil and Gas Investments Funds (OGIF) to farm into the eight gas exploration blocks comprising the Tendrara Lakbir Licence Area onshore Morocco
The key terms of the agreement include an entrance fee payable to OGIF of USD$300,000 and 100 per cent of the drill cost, test and completion of an appraisal or pre-development well on the TE-5 Structure, that is to be drilled on or before 28 February 2014.
The terms also mention that Pathfinder will put together an outline plan of development for the TE-5 gas discover and act as the technical operator for the drilling of the well.
Paul Griffiths, managing director of Fastnet, said, “The Tendrara Lakbir Licence offers our shareholders an exciting early drilling opportunity to appraise an existing gas discovery. Fastnet has sourced a rig for the upcoming Tendrara drilling operations. A successful drilling result at Tendrara could be the catalyst to move towards an outline development plan and rapid monetisation of the original gas discovery.”
The Tendrara Lakbir Licence covers an area of 14,548 sq km and the majority of the Tendrara Basin, which lies between the Middle Atlas to the north and the High Atlas to the south.
It is one of Morocco’s prospective basins for Triassic gas. Five wells drilled within the licence area have already encountered gas-bearing Triassic sands of the Tagi Formation. The Tagi is the host reservoir for Meskala gas field, along strike to the west in the Essaouira Basin.
All these gas discoveries have been charged from the prolific Silurian source rocks that are an integral part of the proven Palaeozoic-Early Mesozoic petroleum systems covering large parts of Libya, Algeria and Morocco.
Pathfinder Hydrocarbon Ventures Limited is the wholly-owned subsidiary of Fastnet, focused on near term exploration acreage in Morocco and the Celtic Sea
The TE-5 gas discovery was made in 2006 in the Tendrara Licence.
The well was re-entered and put on an extended well test in 2008 and no significant pressure depletion was recorded. The well, however, failed to reach its optimum predicted deliverability rate of 113,267 cubic metres to 198,217 cubic metres for the reservoir parameters verified by earlier log analysis.
