IOG Secures North Sea Well Financing
UK-based Independent Oil and Gas (IOG) said September 14 it has secured funding of its Harvey appraisal well, having finalised a £15mn ($20mn) agreement with lender with London Oil and Gas.
IOG is targeting spudding the Harvey appraisal well in January 2019 with the objective of testing and proving up the upside gas resource estimates. CEO Andrew Hockey said: "A successful Harvey appraisal well would be a game-changer for IOG, providing a major increase to our existing 303bn ft3 2P proven gas reserves in the [UK] southern North Sea.” He said the geological chance of its success was now up to 63%.
Hockey added that IOG now estimates the low case for Harvey to be 85bn ft3 – double an independent reservoir audit last year which gave a low case of 44bn ft3 – and that IOG’s 129bn ft3 mid-case estimate is also an improvement on the auditor's 114bn ft3 mid-case. “If successfully appraised, we see potential for a streamlined development, benefiting from very strong synergies with our other assets,” he said. Harvey, in the southern North Sea, was proven by a well drilled in 1984 by Arco, a company later acquired by BP.