The seismic acquisition program, originally planned to begin sometime between October 2005 and January 2006, was brought forward by two months, Baraka said this morning.

“The early completion of the seismic program gives the joint venture partners confidence that the preferred target date of second quarter 2006 for spudding the first well in this project could be achieved,” Baraka said.

The farm-out agreement Baraka recently signed with CNPCIM for this block was one of the first agreements approved by the new government in Mauritania. The joint venture’s environmental plans were also approved and the seismic acquisition was authorised.

The seismic contractor, BGP, reacted quickly and began the program. BGP will also be running the seismic acquisition in the adjacent Block 12 held by CNPCIM.

Baraka managing director Max de Vietri said the successful and timely completion of the seismic survey demonstrated the close working relationship that existed between CNPCI, Baraka Petroleum and the Mauritanian Government.

“The strength of the partners in the Block 20 exploration project and the way in which we have been able to quickly build an extremely strong working relationship has been the key to the successful completion of this seismic survey and is encouraging for the ongoing development of this block,” de Vietri said.

“If the work program continues to progress at the current rate then we expect the spud date of the first well on this block to be in the second quarter of next year. However this is dependent on a number of factors working positively in our favour, which cannot be relied on at this early stage.”

The seismic survey consisted of 65km of infill seismic immediately on the crest of the Heron prospect. The total cost of $US1 million was significantly less than the established carried work program budget of US$1.6 million, as mobilisation costs associated with the survey were reduced through the collaboration of the three companies operating in Mauritania’s coastal onshore region.

In the coming fortnight, the seismic will be analysed for amplitude variation with offset (AVO) to guide gas and gas condensate fluid mapping of Block 20. This AVO processing, calibration and interpretation will be run in parallel at both the CNPC research centre in Beijing, China and by an expert group of qualified technical personnel in Western Australia.

In addition, detailed velocity modelling will be applied to improve the depth to target prediction from the existing seismic surveys dating from 1990, originally acquired by Texaco, according to Baraka. This work is expected to reduce the uncertainty on the exploration well total depth.