Valiant Petroleum reported that drilling has commenced on the Tybalt appraisal well located in Blocks 211/8c & 13c in the UK Northern North Sea. Valiant holds an 80 percent stake and acts as operator of the block. The work program, which includes a well and a contingent test, has been designed to prove up commercially exploitable volumes via nearby infrastructure which includes the Magnus fields and the Dons Area complex. Tybalt is an Upper Jurassic discovery originally made by Valiant in 2010 with gross resources estimated internally by Valiant to be 7 MMbbls (net 6 MMbbls). The well is being drilled by the Borgsten Dolphin (mid-water semisub) rig and is anticipated to take 35-40 days to complete. Valiant's partner in license is Agora Oil and Gas (UK) Limited (20 percent).

Following completion of operations on Tybalt, a letter of intent has been signed for the Borgsten Dolphin to move to Block 3/17 to drill the Tryfan prospect (Valiant, 33.33%) operated by Apache North Sea Limited prior to undertaking development work on the Causeway field (Valiant, 64.5%, operator). Tryfan is an Eocene channelized sand play in the UK Northern North Sea which benefits from a strong seismic amplitude response. Tryfan has gross prospective resources estimated internally by Valiant to be 24 MMboe (net 8 MMboe

Tags: Valiant Petroleum Limited