Max Petroleum (LON:MXP) is now preparing to receive a deep drilling rig for its potentially high impact ‘deep salt’ drill programme in Kazakhstan.
In this morning’s statement Max said that the Saipem's National 1625 DE onshore drilling rig has now been release pre-salt exploration programme has now been released from its previous job and it is on its way to the drill site for the NUR-1 well, on the Emba B prospect in Block E, Kazakhstan.
Max reckons that drilling will get underway on the NUR-1 on or before October 31 2011.
At the moment the company is currently drill shallower targets in Kazakhstan, with some success.
On Monday it announced the new Sagiz West oil discovery in the SAGW-1 exploration well.
The company’s analysis indicates that SAGW-1 encountered 27 metres of net pay, with 21 metres oil and six metres of gas pay, over a 114-metre interval in the Triassic formation at measured depths of between 1,177 and 1,291 metres. The firm said that reservoir quality is “very good” with porosities ranging from 18 per cent to 25 per cent.
Max had been targeting an estimated, un-risked mean resource of 26 million barrels of oil at Sagiz West.
The discovery was a significant result but analysts believe the ‘deep salt’ targets have the potential to dwarf these shallower targets. Earlier this week Merchant Securities analyst Brendan Long said that if Max’s Emba B project is a success it may prove to be ‘considerably more valuable’ than the brokers’ US$610 million pre-drill estimate.