HDR hardman resources limited

-Oil Barrel

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    Hardman’s Drilling In Mauritanian Waters Could Cause Excitement In The Weeks Ahead.


    Hardman Resources, the Australian explorer which is quoted on London’s Alternative Investment market (AIM) has been having a busy time lately as its second quarter 2002 report, recently released, makes clear. During the quarter Hardman sold its 8,350,000 shares in fellow Aussie explorer Arc Energy realising a profit of A$2.97 million on its original investment.. Hardman still holds 7,475,000 shares in Arc equivalent to 4.91 of Arc’s issued capital. Arc has recently been involved in a successful oil discovery in the Perth Basin in Western Australia.

    Hardman was awarded a large offshore exploration permit covering approximately 57,000 square kilometres in the South Falklands Basin. The company holds a 30 per cent interest in the project. In Fench Guyane the company has signed a contract to shoot 7,500 kilometres of 2D seismic across a large offshore permit, on very favourable financial terms.

    On the Woodada gas field where Hardman has its only producing property Woodada # 19 was drilled to a total depth of 2,841 metres and was cased and suspended as a potential oil or gas producer, after encountering good gas shows in the Carynginia reservoir and oil indications in deeper sandstones between 2,722 and 2,793 metres depth. Testing operations on the well recommenced two weeks ago. Meanwhile during the quarter gas production was continuing at an average rate of approximately 3.3 million cubic feet per day.

    All these developments are, though, overshadowed by events in West Africa. This is really what everyone is waiting for. Offshore West Africa is considered one the most exciting new oil provinces anywhere. It could contain around a third of the world’s unexploited deep-water reserves. Hardman has various interests in West Africa, but the current focus is on Mauritania. Hardman , in partnership with fellow Australian explorers Fusion Oil & Gas, Roc Oil and Woodside Petroleum and until recently Italy’s Agip, holds interests in varying permutations in large offshore Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) over Blocks 2,3,4, 5 and 6 in the Senegal-Mauritania Basin. These licences were divided into Joint Venture Areas A,B and C.

    Last summer there was great excitement when a first well Chinguetti-1 drilled on Block 4 on Area B successfully discovered oil. Some estimates put potential reserves at 180 million barrels of oil (although Woodside put estimates of recoverable oil at less than this.) A second well Courbine –1 failed to find commercial amounts of oil. But it hardly mattered, since Chinguetti-1 had really stirred the imagination.But there is still a long way to go before we know something more definite. Hence the great interest in the recent announcement about the next stage of exploration. The drillship Deepwater Discovery has arrived in Mauritanian waters and commenced drilling the first well of a four well programme Chinguetti4-2 well on July 30.

    The drilling reports will be studied avidly over the what’s left of the summer.
 
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