Sound Oil (LON:SOU) are one to watch for Monday, as in the previous announcement they said 'Sound Oil has been advised by the Operator that the Cataka-1 exploration well on the Citarum PSC, Java, Indonesia has encountered unstable formation in the top hole section, necessitating a sidetrack. The sidetrack hole has already been drilled to the casing depth at 1,397 feet and the 13 3/8ths casing set and cemented. Now that this part of the unstable formation has been cased off, the well will drill ahead to the objective at 6,995 feet as originally planned. It is estimated that at least two additional weeks will be needed to complete operations beyond the planned 21 day programme.' Now that 2 week extension would lead us to Monday, so it would be surprise to see an update hitting the news wires at the very early part of next week. Good, bad or ugly, we will watch eagerly.
Tullow Oil (LON:TLW) moved 3% better to 1475 in trading, after the company announced that it has signed two new Production Sharing Agreements, or PSAs, with the Government of Uganda covering the EA-1 and Kanywataba licenses in the Lake Albert Rift Basin, adding that it has also been awarded the Kingfisher production license. As a result of this signing, Tullow will now finalizes arrangements with oil companies CNOOC and Total for completion of the farm-down and the related transfer of monies as soon as possible.' Major resistance sits at 1475p, so any break and close above could get the chartists among us excited. Support looks to be around the 1400p area.
Serica Energy (LON:SQZ) has been catching the eye recently, as volumes have been very gradually picking up. The shares have been on a decent run from 20p to the current level of 25p, as investors align themselves ahead of what looks to be a busy period of updates for the company. An interesting extract from the Q3 results on the 14th of November was from Tony Craven Walker, the Chairman of Serica, who said 'I believe that the potential of the Company's prospects will become apparent in the next few months as we prepare to drill our UK prospects in 2012 and also identify partners with whom we can exploit our very significant Atlantic Margin position." So could we be about ready for another update? We will be watching very closely for any updates here.
The volume in San Leon (LON:SLE) was huge yesterday, with just over 26 million shares changing hands. We will be watching the news wires to see if anybody reports a holding update to account for all that volume. Shares today were a little easier, but holders in the position are waiting for updates on a few wells. San Leon have been very vocal over the last few weeks with regards to updates, and the market is hoping the news flow continues.
Tower Resources (LON:TRP) continued to move better today, pushing 8% to 4.4p. Resistance around these levels will be the key area to watch for, as any break could get the retail investors active. Holders were still cheering the news that the company should be spudding a few weeks ahead of schedule. Possibly the news of the PSA in Uganda with Tullow oil helped grease the wheels slightly, ahead of them spudding the Mvule-1 well in the country.
I have been speaking about Kea Petroleum (LON:KEA) for a while now, and Monday the company announced its 2012 drilling program will commence with the drilling of the Puka-1 well in onshore Taranaki, New Zealand permit area PEP 51153. Puka-1 is expected to spud within the next four weeks. Well will be drilled to a depth of 1,550 meters, with a slight lateral deviation, to test for oil in Miocene aged Mount Messenger Sands. Shares did move better on that news, and continued to rally yesterday. Kea also please holders by announcing it has selected Drillforce's Rig 1 for a 2 + 1 (optional) well program. The Rig is expected to be mobilized first to Kea's Puka-1 wellsite, located in Kea's onshore Taranaki, New Zealand permit area PEP 51153. Directors believe site preparations are progressing well and are on schedule for rig delivery to site on or around Feb. 15. So we will be watching for any updates around the middle of Feruary.
Amerisur Resources (LON:AMER) decided to have a delayed positive reaction to the operations update from Monday. The announcement highlighted that construction of road infrastructure at Platanillo block in Colombia is almost complete, and added that it has received approval for two new licenses within the Piriti and Pilar sedimentary basins in Paraguay. Civil engineering and construction of road infrastructure to the southern sector of the Platanillo block in Colombia is almost complete. It also said that the company is In final stages of negotiating a rig contract with an established Colombian Drilling Contractor for the upcoming six well Platanillo drilling campaign, with operations on track to spud the first well in March. Drilling campaign is targeting a production uplift to 5,000 BOPD by the end of 2012. Shares were 7% better at almost 21p.
Volga Gas (LON:VGAS) were a little better today, trading up 2% to 81p at the mid-price. Possibly one of the reasons this has just started to move is this paragraph from the last update back in October last year. 'Urozhainoye-2 licence area, The Yu. Romanovskaya #1 exploration well reached its initial target at a depth of 2,885 metres where the Bo layer was found to be thinner than prognosed and without hydrocarbons. Having completed logging operations, drilling is to continue to the primary target horizon at a depth of 3,800 metres. The rig used to drill the top section of the well will remain on location to drill the deeper section, in an operation that is expected to take about three months.' So that would led us to believe the company could be updating the market sometime in February.
Written by Steven Asfour, Sales Trader at Fox-Davies