President Energy Strikes Oil in Argentina

UK-based oil and gas company President Energy President Energy has encountered oil in the third and final well of its current drill programme at the Puesto Flores concession in Argentina.

Well PF0 1005 has been drilled, logged, cased and cemented to 2,360 metres both on time and on budget, the company focusing primarily on high margin production opportunities in Latin America said.

Both the Punta Rosada primary target and the Lotena formation secondary target resulted in good oil shows while drilling and are shown by electronic logs to be encouraging with 18 metres of net oil pay determined to be tested having good oil saturation and porosity. The results are in line with pre-drill expectations.

The drilling rig is now being demobilised from the Puesto Flores field with the workover rig anticipated to commence testing and completion of the well towards the end of this week.

After this, the well is currently scheduled to be placed on production at or around New Year. At this time, management retains its conservative pre-drill expectations of 200 barrels of oil per day (bopd) initial production from this well pending successful testing and the well coming on to production.

Management reaffirms its Group target exit 2018 production rate of 3,000 boepd.

Peter Levine, Chairman and Group CEO said: "To have drilled, logged, cased and cemented the entire three well programme on time and on budget and be producing from the first two wells ahead of expectations with the third yet to come on stream underlines just how far President has come in its operational capabilities this year.

"The drilling has been conducted successfully in parallel with many other operations in our various concessions in Argentina and follows on from the workover successes achieved in the first half of the year.

"Drilling will start up again during the course of 2019 but in the meantime diverse reactivations, workovers and infrastructure work will continue including integration of the two new Concessions in Rio Negro on which more will be said in due course."

Victor Linari, Master in Geology and Member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists, who meets the criteria for qualified persons under the AIM guidance note for mining and gas companies, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this announcement.