Heritage Oil Buys Stake in Two PNG Licenses

Heritage Oil has announced that it has agreed to acquire interests in two exploration blocks, PPL 337 and PPL 437, in Papua New Guinea (PNG) from Kina Petroleum.

In return for earning a 70% working interest and operatorship in PPL 337, Heritage will fund the costs of drilling two shallow exploration wells. In addition, Heritage will make a $500,000 contribution to Kina Petroleum’s back costs on the licence. In the event of a discovery, Heritage will carry Kina Petroleum’s costs of up to 100 kms of appraisal seismic data.

In return for initially earning a 30% working interest in PPL 437, Heritage will carry Kina Petroleum’s seismic acquisition costs for a minimum of 100 kms of data and make a $300,000 contribution to Kina Petroleum’s back costs on the licence. Heritage will be the operator of the seismic work programme during this phase. In addition Heritage has an option to acquire a further 20% working interest from Kina Petroleum and operatorship of the licence by carrying them through the drilling of an exploration well.

PPL 337 is located within the south eastern part of the North New Guinea Basin, in the Ramu Sub Basin. PPL 437 is located in a proven hydrocarbon system less than 20 kms north of the Elevala and Ketu c.1.0 TCF gas condensate fields and the recent Tingu-1 exploration discovery well.

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