SDX Launches Drilling in Morocco
London-listed SDX Energy has kicked off a 12-well drilling campaign in Morocco’s Gharb basin, where it is targeting a mean 15bn ft3 of gross unrisked prospective resources.
The first seven are lower-risk appraisal wells, targeting prospects near existing infrastructure at SDX’s core production concessions at Sebou and Gharb Centre, the company said in a stock filing. They can be tied in quickly at a low cost and are similar in geological risk to discoveries already made and brought into production in the area.
SDX will then sink two step-out exploration wells further north in Gharb Centre, in an area removed from infrastructure. The pair will target prospects similar to finds made in Sebou and Gharb Centre but deemed higher risk, because of their location in an untested area. The final three higher-risk probes will target larger prospects in deeper, as yet unproven horizons in the Lalla Mimouna Nord concession.
SDX said it had procured an American rig for the work, which will continue until the first quarter of 2020.
SDX has 75% interests in the Sebou, Lalla Mimouna Nord, Gharb Centre, Lalla Mimouna Sud and Moulay Bouchta Oue concessions, situated near the coast of northern Morocco. Its partner is the Moroccan National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines.
Beyond Morocco, SDX also operates in Egypt. It suffered a $354,000 loss in the first half, versus a $971,000 profit in the same period last year, as a result of higher operating costs.