88 Energy Ltd (LON:88A, ASX:88E) has told investors it remains on track to spud the hotly anticipated Icewine-2 well in the coming months.
The well, designed to test the production potential of the HRZ shale discovery, is due to be spudded late in the first quarter once customary permits have been received from the Alaskan authorities.
No permitting issues are anticipated, the company said.
Today’s update comes in the form of a quarterly activities report that reflects on a period of positioning for 88 Energy.
During the three months ended December 31 the oil explorer secured a large increase in its land position on Alaska’s North Slope, picking up 190,000 extra net acres, taking its footprint to some 400,000 (its joint venture’s gross position is 600,000 acres).
Whilst the upcoming well is targeting the new shale discovery, the company has also spent recent months working up its portfolio of conventional exploration prospects – identifying its top leads in 2D seismic data. Those exploration leads amounted to some 758mln barrels of prospective recoverable oil resources.
Earlier this month, completed its assessment and added a further 710mln barrels worth of prospects to take the prospective tally to almost 1.5bn barrels.
The HRZ, meanwhile, has previously been estimated to have 1.4 to 3.6bn barrels of oil resources.
It raised A$11mln of funds through an issue of new equity to US-based investors, and at the end of December 88 Energy had A$26.5mln.