Hawkley Extends Chernetska Licence, Ukraine
Ukraine-focused Hawkley Oil & Gas has announced today that it has been awarded a five-year licence over the Chernetska licence, located in the Dnieper-Donets Basin in Ukraine.
The award of an exploration licence over the prospect extends a licence already held by Hawkley for the Chernetska field. The company, which solely holds two exploration licences in the Dnieper-Donets Basin (the second being the Sorochynska licence), has noted significant oil and gas shows from the field.
Though the field is in the early stages of exploration, independent evaluation of the field has put its prospective resources at 379 billion cubic feet. The field has previously been drilled, during the Soviet era, but Hawkley has only recently completed its first operated well (Chernetska-1) on the field.
The company sas it encountered hydrocarbons in several zones, in the B20, B24/25 and B26 horizons. Test results from that well are so far inconclusive, but Hawkley says it is encouraged by the recovery of oil from the B26 sands and significant gas shows in the B24/25 carbonate. The company continues to evaluate the results of Chernetska-1 well to ascertain whether it is worthwhile commencing further testing operations with a workover rig at a later date.
CEO of Hawkley Richard Reavley said today that the company was encouraged by the oil and gas shows on the prospect and was pleased to have been awarded the licence.
"We are pleased to have tied up this 5 year exploration licence on Chernetska which was acquired in line with our budget expectations," he said.
"Chernetska is an exciting licence with substantial upside potential, and whilst the overall results of our first operated well on the block were somewhat inconclusive due to the mechanical failure in the casing whilst testing, we were encouraged by the results that were conclusive, namely the recovery of oil from the B26 and the gas shows encountered whilst drilling the thicker B24/25 carbonate interval. As such, we feel Chernetska has substantial upside and we will work towards exploiting the potential of this exciting licence over the next 5 year period."