PA Pulls Plug at Didon North Offshore Tunisia

Despite good oil saturation in the reservoir, only small amounts of hydrocarbons have been recovered from the Didon North well in recent flow tests, offshore Tunisia. According to preliminary analysis, the well has encountered minor faults, not visible in the seismic data, preventing oil from flowing in the well. Several attempts to flow the well have been made using different techniques, why additional measures without further analysis are not justified at this stage.

Thus, the Board of Director's of PA Resources has decided to suspend the well and release the drilling rig Ensco 85. A full analysis will be conducted to evaluate all options for future exploitation of the oil in the reservoir that was discovered by an exploration well at the field in 2008. The investment will be impaired in the fourth quarter 2011.

"We are very surprised by this unexpected outcome given our experience from similar reservoirs at the Didon field. We will need time to assess what has gone wrong in testing and possibly the completion of the well. At the same time, we will look into other possibilities to increase our production. Near term we look forward to first oil at the Aseng field in Equatorial Guinea in the fourth quarter," said Bo Askvik, President and CEO of PA Resources AB.