Ascent: Potential Upside from Fontana-1 Still Remains

Ascent will commence the re-drilling of the Fontana-1 well in the next few days. The drilling rig has arrived on location, drilling is expected to take a month and is designed to collect cores to appraise the shallow part of the Anagni structure in the Frosinone Exploration permit in the Latina Valley of Italy. Re-drilling of the well is necessary as the original well, while having demonstrated the presence of the target formations in a structurally high position, experienced mechanical problems which prevented the collection of core samples. 

The original Fontana-1 well reached the target formation 300m shallower than at the Anagni-1 location and confirmed the interpretation of the seismic data. The new well will utilise a slightly larger rig and use a modified procedure to try to ensure the reliable recovery of core samples.

Jeremy Eng Ascent's Managing Director said, "The potential upside from Fontana-1 still remains and we are keen to test the structure that we believe has significant potential. As well as using the larger rig, we are employing a different operating approach to that used in the original drilling of Fontana-1 and therefore do not expect the technical issues previously encountered to reoccur." 

In the Penészlek project in eastern Hungary, the PEN-101 wellsite location is almost complete, the PEN-106 location construction is underway and despite the severe winter weather, the construction of the pipeline from PEN-105 to the gathering facilities and to the main export pipeline is almost complete and awaiting pressure testing.