ADX chairman Ian Tchacos said this morning that recent work on the field, which was abandoned in the 1980s following a spike in water production that rendered the field uneconomic, showed Nilde had an original oil-in-place of more than 300MMbbl.

The work by ADX's geotechnical and reservoir engineering consultancies builds on work undertaken by Senergy earlier in the year, using all of the available geological, drilling and production data that ADX was able to put together, including recently acquired reports from Eni.

With the reports and updated modelling, ADX is planning to throw open the doors of its data room next month with the aim of completing a farm-out to fund engineering work and the drilling of two appraisal/production wells from the fractured carbonate reservoirs.

Senergy's earlier assessment was based on a more basic volumetric analysis with the data available at the time.

Using a 30% recovery factor for the field, which is the same as that used by Senergy and former operator Eni, it was able to re-calculate the remaining 2C contingent recoverable resource at around 60MMbbl.

ADX and its consultants are now seeking to model future field production using reservoir simulation, and plan for the optimal well locations.

The company expects a capital cost for development of the Nilde at less than $10 per barrel, meaning the field would be profitable even in a $15/bbl oil environment.

ADX believes that two slanted or high angle appraisal wells into the Nilde and Nilde Bis lobes will provide sufficient certainty to progress a development as well as provide the necessary well bores for the future production wells that could subsequently be tied in to a leased production facility.

Tchacos said a number of potential farminees and purchasers have already expressed an interest in the development, and he is hopeful the company can drill before the end of 2017.

Nilde was discovered by Eni in shallow water offshore Sicily and came on stream with one vertical well, Nilde-2, in 1980. The well produced at around 10,000bopd from shallow reservoirs at 1500m for over seven years, but a horizontal well drilled in 1986 led to water breakthrough.

Given low oil prices at the time Eni elected to re-use the floating production facility at the Aquila oil field.

Nilde was abandoned, to lie fallow until ADX stumbled over the field last year, after securing the d363 CR.AX application permit in 2014 in pursuit of the foothill anticline structural play from its neighbouring Kerkouane license in Tunisian waters.

ADX shares last traded at $0.006.