Chariot Oil & Gas Limited, the independent Africa focused oil and gas exploration company, is pleased to announce that drilling operations have commenced on the Nimrod prospect. This is the second well in Chariot's 4 to 5 well drilling programme offshore Namibia.
The operator has confirmed that the drilling campaign began this morning on the Kabeljou (2714/6-1) exploration well using the Ocean Rig Poseidon drill ship.
The Nimrod prospect is located in the Orange Basin in Southern Block 2714A where Chariot has a 25% equity interest. Petrobras Oil and Gas BV has a 30% interest in the licence and is the operator with BP Exploration (Namibia) Limited having 45%. The drilling location is 77 kilometres offshore Namibia in 360 metres of water with an estimated total drilling depth of approximately 3,350 metres true vertical depth subsea ("TVDss"). The drilling and logging operations are expected to take approximately 60 days and a further announcement will be made when the well results are known.
Paul Welch, CEO of Chariot, commented:
"We are very pleased to announce the spud of our second well in our 4-5 well drilling programme which will run through to the end of 2013. Nimrod is the biggest prospect in our inventory and any success would be transformational for both Chariot and Namibia. We look forward to being able to update the market with the well results in due course."
