Arabian Oil Company has acquired 10% interests in four respective production licenses of PL316, PL316B, PL316CS and PL316DS through Norske AEDC AS (NAEDC), a wholly owned Norwegian subsidiary of AOC, from Talisman Energy Norge AS (Talisman) which has interests of 70% for PL316 and PL316B, 35% for PL316CS and 50% for PL316DS respectively.

The blocks PL316 and PL316B include the Yme oil field while PL316CS and PL316DS are exploration blocks where several prospects and leads have been identified. The acquisition is subject to final approval of the Norwegian government.

Since Yme oil field is a re-development field where development and production activities had been conducted and rich geological and reservoir data from the past operations are available, technical risks are limited. In addition, possible increase of recoverable reserves in the field is expected by application of advanced EOR technology. For this redevelopment project, as construction of production facilities and drilling of production well has been already started and oil production is planned to commence in 4th quarter 2009, payout period is expected to be short. Expected oil production (100% interest base) will reach the peak rate of more than 40,000 B/D for the initial period and maintain 25,000 B/D approximate for the first four years from the commencement of production.

PL316CS and PL316DS are blocks for exploration and relevant works will be conducted in due course.

The Norwegian Continental Shelf is one of the priority areas for the upstream operations of AOC Holdings group as well as the Middle East. The group plan to continue activities for expansion and development of its upstream business on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Tags: Arabian Oil Company, Talisman Energy