Ascent Resources has been advised by its drilling contractor, Crosco International, that the mobilisation of a rig has started for the Pg-11 evaluation well in the Petisovci-Lovaszi project area in Slovenia, and that they expect to commence drilling on or around 16 December 2010, subject to weather conditions.

The well is the first to be drilled by Ascent on the Petisovci-Lovaszi project area in which the Company recently announced an independently verified P50 estimate of gas-in-place of 412 Bcf (11.7 Bm3; 68.7 MMboe). The PG-11 well has a number of important objectives and the evaluation programme, which includes core sampling and state-of-the-art wireline logging, is designed to collect sufficient data for development planning, as well as calibration of the 3-D seismic to optimise the geological modelling over the entire project area.

Ascent's Managing Director Jeremy Eng said, "Pg-11 in Slovenia is an important well and whilst the main effort is in the evaluation of the Miocene gas reservoirs, we expect that it will be completed as a producing well and then brought into production as soon as possible."

Tags: Ascent Resources plc