Serinus Advances Romania Gas Project

Jersey-registered independent Serinus Energy said June 12 it had drilled a gas development well in northwest Romania, at Satu Mare close to the Hungarian border.

The Moftinu-1007 well went 1,463 metres deep and 20% under budget. Completion and well testing operations are expected to last two weeks. A flowline and a 15mn ft³/d gas processing plant are both being built.

Serinus said it has begun to transfer the operatorship of the sales gas line to Romanian gas grid operator Transgaz, adding that commissioning of the gas plant with first gas from Moftinu-1000 well is expected late June, with gas from Moftinu-1007 to follow from mid-July.

The company expects to be delivering gas in late July 2018 and is finalising a sales gas agreement with a gas trader; its 2018 capex to realise this goal is $3.72mn. Serinus is also seeking a rig to drill its Moftinu-1003 and -1004 wells.

Serinus has gas interests in Tunisia and Romania. The company is 38.77%-owned by Kulczyk Investments, set up by the late Polish billionaire Jan Kulczuk, with four other funds each owning between 5% and 7% equity. Its shares are listed on the London AIM and Warsaw stock exchanges.

It produced 393 barrels of oil equivalent/day in January-February 2018 at Sabria in southern Tunisia. It has no production in Romania but claims 1mn boe of 2C contingent reserves at Moftinu.