Elixir now has interests in 13 UK continental shelf licenses. Two of these are traditional four-year licenses, while the remainder are two-year 'promote' licenses, said managing director Russell Langusch.
“Not only have the successful 23rd Round licenses given added breadth to Elixir’s burgeoning North Sea portfolio, perhaps more significantly they have substantially boosted the company’s prospect inventory in volume terms,” said Langusch.
“Elixir’s management believes that very few junior oil and gas companies have a comparable exploration portfolio of company-making drillable prospects.”
Langusch claimed 17 prospects in this enlarged inventory were estimated to contain over 900 million barrels on an unrisked basis and 240 million barrels on a risked basis.
The existing portfolio’s first drilling activity will be an exploration well planned for the first half of 2006 on the Jaguar prospect in the Northern North Sea’s block 211/22b, said the company. Farm-in partner and operator DNO would drill the well to test a gross potential 450 million barrels.
Nearby is the Leopard prospect in one of the newly awarded traditional license blocks (211/18b), which Elixir said lies in a similar geological setting to Jaguar. The new Upper Jurassic prospect had a 350-million-barrel potential, said the company.
North-east of Jaguar is block 211/8b, which contains a smaller but highly material prospect with potential for 130 million barrels, according to Elixir. The Panther prospect is an Upper Jurassic structural play to the east of BP’s Magnus field, which also produces from this horizon.
The company said the seismic programs for both blocks had already started, with the aim of starting drilling in the near future.
Meanwhile, block 13/25 in the Central North Sea will adjoin three blocks occupied by Elixir and its joint venture partner Faroe Petroleum, which includes a series of mapped Jurassic prospects along a west-to-east trend.
Awarded on a traditional license basis, blocks 14/8a and 14/9a neighbour the company’s existing block 14/14b, in which it has a 50% interest. Elixir said a large Jurassic prospect was shared between blocks 14/9a and 14/14b, which contained a potential 140 million barrels.
The work program for 14/8a and 14/9a included shooting a 3D seismic survey to better delineate the prospect before drilling, said the company.
Meanwhile, the two gas basin blocks, blocks 43/7 and 44/27b, were awarded in partnership with the large seismic group, TGS-NOPEC.
Not far from the developed Esmond and Forbes gas fields, Block 43/7 hosts two prospects interpreted to contain about 500 bcf, said Elixir.
Block 44/27b lies to the southeast and nearby producing gas fields at Boulton and Ketch. Elixir claimed a Carboniferous prospect with a 140 bcf potential had been mapped in this block. The work program in these two blocks consists of acquiring and reprocessing 2D and 3D seismic.
