New discovery for Gulf Keystone

9th Mar 2010 17:14

Kurdistan-focused oil and gas explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum has announced another oil discovery. Gulf Keystone has 20% of the Akri Bijeel block in Kurdistan. The operator Kalegran owns the rest and it has announced a successful test at the Bijeel-1 exploration well, which has reached 3,831m. Oil flowed at rates of up to 3,200 bopd with associated gas rates of 933,000 scf/d. Drilling will continue until the well reaches 4,400m. This discovery is on top of Gulf Keystone's main asset at Shaikan-1. In January, Gulf Keystone increased its oil in-place estimates for the Shaikan-1 discovery in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq to between 1.9bn and 7.4bn barrels of oil. Previous estimates were for between 1bn and 5bn, with additional upside potential to a total of 13bn barrels of oil in place.The latest news comes the day after Gulf Keystone drew down a further £900,000 of its £30m Standby Equity Distribution Agreement with YA Global Master. This was the seventh draw down and so far £17.96m has been drawn down. The company issued 1.18m shares at 76.21p each in the latest draw down. The shares ended the day up 8p to 93.75p each.