Chariot to De-Risk Prospects Off Mauritania

Chariot and its partners Cairn Energy and the SociétéMauritanienne des Hydrocarbures et de Patrimoine Miner (SMHPM), have secured a one year extension on the current exploration phase of the C-19 licence offshore Mauritania.

As part of the extension, the Partnership has committed to undertake seabed coring studies, which will provide further subsurface detail and serve to further de-risk this part of the portfolio.

During 2014, the Partnership carried out a significant amount of additional technical work on its 3,500km2 of proprietary 3D seismic data which included specialised processing, iterative interpretation and spectral decomposition analysis. From this Chariot has identified and matured a significant prospect and lead portfolio which includes four prospects that are now drill ready. These prospects have been independently validated by NSAI and a dataroom is open as part of an additional partnering process.

These prospects in Block C-19 are located down-dip from the legacy Ras al Beida-1 well which encountered good, thick sands and extensive oil shows and are along strike from the Aigrette-1 well which encountered an oil leg in a 20m sand interval.

The Company has identified four priority prospects all of which have been independently audited by Netherland Sewell and Associates (NSAI), who estimate that the single target PA-1 and MA-1 prospects have gross mean prospective resources of 431 mmbbls and 588 mmbbls respectively. The KT-1 and BFT-1 prospects are interpreted to comprise stacked deep water sandstone targets located in a combination of structural and stratigraphic trapping geometries in the Cretaceous and overlying Tertiary section. Individual targets in these prospects are estimated by NSAI to contain a range of gross mean prospective resources up to 434 mmbbls.

Larry Bottomley, Chief Executive of Chariot, said: “I would like to thank the Ministry of Mines and Energy for its continuing support and cooperation as we look to progress this licence towards drilling. The evaluation of the prospectivity across this acreage has taken longer than expected, however we are very pleased with the scale of the substantial prospect and lead inventory that has been generated as a result of this work. Success from drilling any one of these prospects would be transformational for Chariot. Mauritania continues to be a region of focus for giant potential, deep water exploration, with a number of wells due to be drilled by third parties in the coming year. The ongoing studies will further advance our understanding prior to entering the drilling phase.”

With 55% stake, Chariot is the operator of the C-19 licence, with Cairn having 35% and SMHPM 10% of carried interest.