It’s almost exactly 3 years to the day since GKP first announced their significant oil discovery on their Shaikan licence.
After completing 6 wells on the block, the p90 number now stands at 12.4bln oip. A staggering figure. And this doesn’t include what potentially lies beneath the mammoth find at sub 4000m.
Today’s DoC effectively ends the appraisal phase and moves GKP into the development phase. Questions loom large on how a company of GKP’s size could fund and develop a licence block with circa 13bln+ resources (at present).
With Gazprom, Total and Chevron all entering the region in the last couple of months, the scene looks set for an interesting next 180 days.
My hunch is (and i’m not the only one) that GKP will indeed find themselves the centre of attention in Q4 as the above mentioned majors seek to take a dominant role in probably the hottest oil exploration region in the world at present.
GKP also have 3 other licence blocks apart from Shaikan. All of them are due to announce results on recent drills/tests. One possibility is that the current SA-2 drill could prove connectivity between the block and the Shaikan block. That could clearly be very meaningful especially as GKP have a higher 80% interest in the SA licence.
Plenty of news due on the horizon for GKP on all their licences.
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10 August 2012, Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. (AIM: GKP)
Shaikan Declaration of Commercial Discovery
Gulf Keystone today announces that Gulf Keystone Petroleum International Limited (Operator), Kalegran Ltd. and Texas Keystone Inc., collectively being the Contractor under the Production Sharing Contract relating to the Shaikan Block in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq dated 6 November 2007 (“PSC”), have submitted a Declaration of Commercial Discovery with effect from 1 August 2012 to the Shaikan Block Management Committee under Clause 12.6 (a) of the PSC.
The Contractor intends to submit its Field Development Plan to the Shaikan Block Management Committee within 180 days following the submission of the Declaration of Commercial Discovery.
Todd Kozel, Gulf Keystone’s Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer commented:
“Declaration of Commercial Discovery is an important milestone for Gulf Keystone. It marks the completion of the Shaikan appraisal programme and the move to the development of this world class discovery. Preparation of the Shaikan Field Development Plan is already well underway, which we look forward to submitting within the next 180 days.”