Remember theexcitement
(andcontroversy) about new drilling for
oil off the
Falklands
Islands
by
four
UK
companies?
Well, some initial exploratory drilling results are
in, and they don’t sound especially promising:
The primary Liz
target was encountered at around 2550 metres with indications of hydrocarbons
while drilling. Subsequent logging operations have shown that oil may be
present in thin intervals but that reservoir quality is poor. Wireline sampling
is still to be carried out. Deeper gas shows have also been encountered
while drilling, particularly below 3400 metres and these have still to be
evaluated by wireline logging and sampling.
Until
the logging is complete and the results analysed it will not be possible to
determine
the significance of the hydrocarbons encountered and whether the well will need
to be drilled deeper, suspended for testing or plugged and abandoned.
Desire Petroleum, the aim-listed company
that issued theabove statement,
concluded by saying a full update would be released later in the week when the
operation had concluded (areport
in the Sunday
Times forced Monday’s statement).
Desire’s shares have taken a tumble along
with, to a lesser extent, its three fellow
Falklands
explorers: Rockhopper, Falklands Oil and Gas, and Borders and Southern.
This could of course turn out to be an overreaction - none of the other
three companies have progressed as far as Desire with drilling and all,
including Desire itself, hold stakes in other
Falkland
Islands
offshore fields that are yet to be
assessed.
But, if all else fails, there’s always
Greenland
.
(from the FT)