Sterling reported that the Sangaw North-1 exploration well in Kurdistan was spud on February 1, 2010.

Kurdistan - Sangaw North PSC The Sangaw North-1 well, the first exploration well on the Sangaw North Block, will target several prospective Cretaceous and Jurassic aged reservoirs and has a planned depth of 3,660m. An independent review of the Sangaw North prospect undertaken by RISC (UK) Ltd gives a best estimate of gross prospective oil resources for the Cretaceous interval of 804 million barrels.

The well has been designed with the option to drill deeper to a total depth of 4,160m to test additional Jurassic aged reservoirs; the decision to drill this additional section will be taken based upon the drilling results.

Drilling and preliminary evaluation is anticipated to take 180 days.

Sterling is the operator of the Sangaw North Block with a 53.33% WI.

The Block, which covers an area of 492 km2, lies in a highly prospective area around 50 km south east of the giant Kirkuk oil field, on trend with Addax Petroleum's Taq Taq oil field and the Chemchemal gas condensate discovery and 40 km south of Heritage's recent Miran West oil discovery.

Tags: Sterling Energy