A trio of small-cap oil and gas shares were falling in Wednesday’s early deals as an exploration well in the Moray Firth, offshore Scotland, proved to be a dud.
Baron Oil PLC (LON:BOIL), Upland Resources PLC (LON:UPL) and Reabold Resources PLC (LON:RBD) were all in the dog house – with Baron and Upland suffering particularly heavy losses, down 22% and 33% respectively.
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The Wick exploration well will be plugged and abandoned after its primary target was encountered as expected but was found to be water bearing.
"This is a very disappointing result for the Wick well,” said Malcolm Butler, Baron chief executive.
“We will now review the results to determine the reasons for the failure of the well and its implications for the Wick structural complex as a whole.”
Upland chief executive Steve Staley, meanwhile, added: "This is obviously not the result we had hoped for in the Wick exploration well.”
Elsewhere, Readbold co-chief executive Sachin Oza commented: “Whilst we are inevitably disappointed with the result of the Wick well, we considered Wick to be the highest risk prospect in our portfolio and not representative of the typical Reabold appraisal target.”
The ENSCO-72 rig that drilled the Wick well will now mobilise south, to the location of the Colter project off England’s south coast.
Located off the south coast, Colter is located in the vicinity of the Wytch Farm oil field and it is seen as something of a high profile project for a number of small-cap explorers.
Baron and Reabold have interests in Colter, as does United Oil & Gas PLC (LON:UOG).