Sea Lion success for Rockhopper

1st Jun 2011 14:52

Shares in Rockhopper Exploration jumped higher on Wednesday after an appraisal well at its Sea Lion development shows a "significant reservoir package and hydrocarbon column".The 14/10-5 appraisal well encountered 94m net pay in high quality reservoir."Wireline logging indicates that reservoir quality is good, with average porosity of greater than 20% and average permeabilities of 100-200 millidarcies (mD)," the statement said."This is an enormously encouraging result and is a testament to the quality of our technical team. The well test will be another key step on the road towards proving commerciality for the Sea Lion discovery," said chief executive Sam Moody.The result was better-than-expected, according to Matrix, and beats the thickness of the reservoir (53m net pay) found in the 14/10-2 discovery well (600m south of 14/10-5)."We see this well result as a positive step for Rockhopper, but we think the well-test result is the more critical information at this stage," said Matrix analyst Charlie Sharp.---BC