North Sea Serenity well result hits i3 and Europa Oil & Gas shares

Shares in i3 Energy tumbled more than 11 per cent yesterday, after the company reported “disappointing” results from an appraisal well on its Serenity field in the North Sea.

The well, which is estimated to have cost i3 £5.6 million and partner Europa Oil & Gas £4.8m, has been plugged and abandoned. Europa shares dropped 42% to 1.275p.

i3, which has a 75% working interest in Serenity, said data recovered from the appraisal well would be “integrated into further reservoir modelling to optimise a development plan to exploit the reserves”.

 The company, which is listed on the Alternative Investment Market and has operations in Canada as well as the UK, noted the reserves had been “proven up” by the “13/23c-10” discovery well, in the eastern end of the structure, drilled in October 2019. This well found oil-bearing sands.

Setting out the appraisal well results, i3 said: “The targeted Lower Cretaceous Captain sand, which contained hydrocarbons in the 13/23c-10 well discovered in October 2019, was not present at this location. Over 100 ft of other Captain sands in various sequences were found but were water wet. The well will now be plugged and abandoned.”

 Majid Shafiq, chief executive of i3, said: “Whilst this result is disappointing, we and Europa (having satisfied the farm-in conditions) will use the data recovered to improve our understanding of the Serenity field and the architecture and geometry of the Captain sand reservoir intervals. The data will also improve our understanding of the extent and geometry of the oil-bearing sand found in the 13/23c-10 discovery well. This will allow us to proceed with the planning and evaluation of a preferred development option, initially focused on the eastern area of the mapped structure around the discovery well.”

 AIM-listed Europa farmed in to Serenity earlier this year, and has a 25% stake in the field.

Shares in i3 fell by 3.15p or nearly 11.5% to 24.3p.

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE