TIDMALBA TIDMUKOG
RNS Number : 7174M
Alba Mineral Resources PLC
11 May 2015
11 May 2015
Alba Mineral Resources plc
("Alba" or the "Company")
Upgrade to Horse Hill Conventional Portland Sandstone Oil in
Place Volumes
Alba Mineral Resources plc (LSE AIM: ALBA) is pleased to
announce an upgrade to the conventional Stock Tank Oil Initially In
Place ("STOIIP") volumes estimated for the overall Upper Portland
Sandstone conventional reservoir in the Horse Hill-1 ("HH-1") and
Collendean Farm-1 ("CF-1") structure ('Horse Hill'), in the PEDL137
licence area (Surrey-West Sussex, Weald Basin). This revised STOIIP
is separate to the oil-in-place volumes estimated for the
argillaceous limestones and mudstones of the Kimmeridge, Oxford and
Lias rock sections of the HH-1 well, as reported on 9 April 2015
and 15 April 2015. The Company has a net attributable interest of
6.5% in PEDL137.
An independent study of the Portland Sandstone reservoir was
conducted by Xodus Group ("Xodus"), an international energy
consultancy based in the UK (see www.xodusgroup.com), for the Horse
Hill Developments Ltd (HHDL) main consortium partners UK Oil and
Gas Investments PLC (UKOG). The study is based on new petrophysical
evaluations of both the HH-1 discovery and the older Collendean
Farm-1 ("CF-1") well plus an updated interpretation of 2D seismic
data across the Licence. The study report is available on UKOG's
website (see www.ukogplc.com).
The HH-1 and CF-1 discoveries lie within an approximately
100-foot thick, Upper Portland Sandstone gross reservoir interval,
within a 6km by 3km tilted fault block structure as defined by 2D
seismic. The crest of the Upper Portland conventional oil discovery
lies at approximately 1,760ft TVDSS, and extends over a mapped
maximum areal closure of approximately 2,000 acres. The Upper
Portland reservoir is productive at the nearby Brockham field, some
9km NNW, in which UKOG has an indirect interest of 3.6%.
Xodus calculate that the Upper Portland Sandstone conventional
reservoir contains a "Best Estimate" (P50) gross STOIIP of 21.0
MMbbl, which is slightly more than UKOG's own revised latest
estimate of 20MMbbl, and which is entirely within PEDL137 and
encompasses both the HH-1 and CF-1 wells. This is an increase of
12.8 MMbbl over the 8.2 MMbbl (P50) gross STOIIP reported on 17
December 2014, which results largely from the new petrophysical
evaluation of HH-1 electric logs, calibrated to new XRD and MICP
data, and a new interpretation of the CF-1 electric logs,
calibrated to core data.
The gross Upper Portland STOIIP ranges estimated by Xodus are as
per the table below:
STOIIP (MMbbl) Low Best High Mean
---------------------- ----- ----- ----- -----
Upper Portland Gross
100% 14.3 21.0 30.4 21.8
The oil in place hydrocarbon volumes (STOIIP) estimated should
not be construed as recoverable resources or reserves. Meaningful
estimates of recoverable oil within the Upper Portland can likely
only be made following the proposed HH-1 flow test and a
significant proportion will not be recovered during any future
production regime
The Upper Portland is the uppermost, conventional oil-saturated
reservoir found in the HH-1 and CF-1 wells. It overlies, and is
entirely separate from, the Kimmeridge, Oxford and Lias
oil-saturated argillaceous limestone and mudstone rock sections
reported on 9 April 2015 and 15 April 2015.
The Xodus study is an independent review, solely of the Upper
Portland Sandstone trap-constrained conventional oil reservoir. It
does not include any assessment of the deeper Kimmeridge, Oxford
and Lias oil-saturated argillaceous limestone and mudstone rock
sections, which are currently the subject of a separate review by
Nutech Ltd.
Reporting Standards:
Xodus' STOIIP volumes have been prepared in accordance with the
2007 Petroleum Resources Management System prepared by the Oil and
Gas Reserves Committee of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE),
reviewed, and jointly sponsored by the World Petroleum Council
(WPC), the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and
the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers (SPEE).
Xodus state in their Executive Summary that; "In conducting this
review Xodus has utilised information and interpretations supplied
by UKOG, comprising operator information, geological, geophysical,
petrophysical, well logs and other data along with various
technical reports. Xodus has reviewed the information provided and
modified assumptions where it considered this to be appropriate.
Site visits were not considered necessary for the purposes of this
report."
Michael Nott, Alba's CEO, commented:
"The Xodus Report supports the Company's view that the Horse
Hill and Collendean Farm oil pool constitutes a significant
conventional Upper Portland Sandstone oil discovery in the Weald
basin.
Subject to approval by the relevant authorities, the Consortium
intends to flow test this conventional sandstone zone as part of a
wider test programme of the HH-1 well later in 2015. A successful
test would be followed by a full technical resource assessment, and
the identification of potentially recoverable resource volumes.
Subject to these results, the Company is informed that the
operator, Horse Hill Developments Ltd, intends to engage with the
Oil and Gas Authority ("OGA") and other regulators, and seek to
move the PEDL137 licence into the Production Period as soon as
practicable, via submission of a Field Development Plan to the OGA.
The PEDL137 licence is currently in the exploration phase and
expires on 30 September 2015. HHDL has applied for a one-year
extension of the exploration phase to 30 September 2016."
Alba's interest in Horse Hill:
The Horse Hill-1 well is located within onshore exploration
License PEDL137, on the northern side of the Weald Basin near
Gatwick Airport. Alba owns a 10% direct interest in Horse Hill
Developments Ltd. HHDL is a special purpose company that owns 65%
participating interests and is the operator of licence PEDL137 and
the adjacent licence PEDL246 in the UK Weald Basin. The remaining
35% participating interests in the PEDL137 and PEDL246 licenses are
held by Magellan Petroleum Corporation.
Competent Person's Statement:
The technical information contained in this announcement has,
for the purposes of the AIM Guidance Note for Mining, Oil and Gas
companies, been reviewed and approved by Jonathan
Tidswell-Pretorius, Executive Director at HHDL and Chairman of
Angus Energy Ltd, a UK registered onshore operator who has 15 years
of relevant experience in the oil and gas industry. Mr.
Tidswell-Pretorius is a member of the Society of Petroleum
Engineers and United Kingdom Onshore Oil and Gas (UKOOG) industry
bodies.
For further information please contact:
Alba Mineral Resources plc
Michael Nott, CEO +44 (0) 20 3696 4616
Cairn Financial Advisers LLP
Avi Robinson/ James Caithie +44 (0) 20 7148 7900
Dowgate Capital Stockbrokers Limited
Jason Robertson/ Neil Badger +44 (0) 1293 517 744
Glossary:
argillaceous limestone a limestone containing a significant proportion
of clay minerals
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
clastic rocks composed of broken pieces of older rocks
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
core a cylindrical sample of rock, obtained during drilling
of wells and removed for inspection at surface
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
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
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
electric logs tools used within the wellbore to measure the rock
and fluid properties of surrounding rock formations
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
fault block a very large subsurface block of rock, created by
tectonic and localised stresses
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
limestone a carbonate sedimentary rock predominantly composed
of calcite 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
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
MICP mercury injection capillary pressure, a measure
of rock porosity and permeability, from rock cores
or cuttings, and a calibration of porosity logs
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
MMbbl Million barrels
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
mudstone an extremely fine-grained sedimentary rock consisting
of a mixture of clay and silt-sized particles
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
oil in place or oil the quantity of oil or petroleum that is estimated
initially-in-place to exist originally in naturally occurring accumulations
before any extraction or production
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
petrophysical evaluation the study of physical and chemical rock properties
and their interactions with fluids; studies typically
use well logs, well cores and seismic data
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
P10 a 10% probability that a stated volume will be equalled
or exceeded
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
P50 a 50% probability that a stated volume will be equalled
or exceeded
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
P90 a 90% probability that a stated volume will be equalled
or exceeded
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
recovery or recoverable the quantity or portion of petroleum, here oil and
gas, initially-in-place that can be extracted by
a well or wells to the surface
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
resources the Society of Petroleum engineers ("SPE") defines
as all quantities of petroleum, here oil and gas,
which are estimated to be initially-in-place; however,
some users consider only the estimated recoverable
portion to constitute a resource.
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
reserves reserves are defined by the SPE as those quantities
of petroleum, here oil and gas, which are anticipated
to be commercially recovered from known accumulations
from a given date forward.
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
reservoir a subsurface rock formation containing an individual
natural accumulation of moveable petroleum that
is confined by impermeable rock/formations
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
sandstone a clastic sedimentary rock whose grains are predominantly
sand-sized. The term is commonly used to imply consolidated
sand or a rock made of predominantly quartz sand
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
seismic use of reflected and refracted sound waves generated
at the surface to ascertain the nature of the subsurface
geological structures. 2D seismic records a two
dimensional cross-section through the subsurface
collected using the two-dimensional common depth
point method
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
STOIIP stock tank oil initially in place
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
TVDSS true vertical depth below a subsea datum
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
XRD x-ray diffraction; scattering of x-rays by the atoms
of a rock or crystal that gives information on the
structure, composition and identity of the rock
or crystal
------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
END
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