SOCO announces that the Mindou Marine 1 (MIM-1) exploration well spudded on 5 September 2011 in the Marine XI Block, located in the Congo Basin, offshore the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville). The MIM-1 well is the first in a multi-well (two firm, one contingent) drilling programme on the Marine XI/Marine XIV Blocks and is targeting the Toca limestones with the Djeno sandstone prospect as a secondary target, both below the salt layer with a combined unrisked, pre-drill mean prospective recoverable resource estimates of 165 million barrels. The well will be drilled using the semi-submersible drilling rig ENSCO 5003 and is expected to take 35 to 45 days, with a planned depth of approximately 3,400 metres.
