Greka's India Drilling Program for Essar Moves Ahead

Greka Drilling Tuesday announced that further progress has been made following mobilization orders from Essar Oil in relation to the contract for 100 wells to be drilled in latter’s Raniganj East coal bed methane block in Durgapur, West Bengal.

In December last year, Greka Drilling and Essar Oil signed a $65 million contract where Greka will provide turnkey and allied services to Essar in India.

Five GD75 rigs are at present are being prepared for drilling at designated well sites, Greka said.

Two of the rigs are at present now fully erected and will begin drilling shortly. The remaining three rigs are still mobilizing to the Essar pre-prepared drill sites.  The first wells will be spud in mid-September, commencing the 100 well programme for Essar.

The drilling campaign is expected to last about 12 months.

"We are delighted to announce that the Essar project is on track for spudding this month.  This contract is important for Greka Drilling as it confirms our intention to diversify the Company's client base, geographical strata and drilling operations.  It is also worth noting that this contract gives us an excellent foundation to further expand our services into the highly prospective and scalable Indian unconventional gas market which our business development personnel are focused on expanding into."

Raniganj block is Essar's largest current CBM operation with total area of 500 sq kms.