Eland Oil & Gas drafts in rig for Ubima well

Resource production and development firm Eland Oil & Gas announced on Thursday that it has signed a rig contract with KCA Deutag for the T-57 land rig to workover the Ubima-1 well in Nigeria.

The Ubima Field, in which Eland has a 40% interest, is expected to see the arrival of the rig in early June where dual string completion will then be actioned on the well, which will target oil within the D1000, E1000, E2000 and F7000 reservoirs.

George Maxwell, chief executive of Eland, said: "This is a very exciting milestone for the company. Not only do we have ground breaking activity in Ubima, with the first rig activity in decades, but we are also moving to a multiple rig operation for Eland. This underlines the importance of diversification of our production base."

The Ubima-1 well will be the first to be worked on by Eland and its partners at the Ubima field where there is a 13.1 mmbbls net contingent resource attributable to Eland.

"The Ubima-1 re-entry will be completed in four reservoirs, appraising the field in advance of full field development and moving the material volumes of Contingent Resources into Reserves," said Maxwell.

Elsewhere, the company said it had performed strongly in the first quarter of the year and highlighted that it had benefited from higher crude prices, lower operating costs and an improved balance sheet.

Eland’s revenue increased to $39.8m for the first quarter of 2018, a vast improvement on the $16.3m made in the final three months of 2017, while EBITDA jumped by 136% to $23.9m compared to $10.1m in the preceding quarter.

As of 1409 BST, Eland Oil & Gas’ shares were up 0.13% at 102.13p.