NORTH AFRICA-FOCUSED contractor Challenger will provide drilling rig services to ADX Energy’s Sidi Dhaher-1 well within the Chorbane exploration permit in Tunisia.p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">NORTH AFRICA-FOCUSED contractor Challenger will provide drilling rig services to ADX Energy’s Sidi Dhaher-1 well within the Chorbane exploration permit in Tunisia.
ADX will use onshore drilling unit Rig 37, provided by Challenger, to spud the well in order to test the prospect. The spud date of the 2150 m well will rely on the completion of civil works and Tunisian government approval. Under the deal, Gulfsands will pay an estimated US$4.8mn of the total estimated US$6.9mn cost of the well, which should take 45 days to drill and evaluate.
ADX holds a 40 per cent participating interest in the well and is project operator, with fellow Australian-listed companies Xstate Resources and Verus Investments holding 10 per cent each and UK-listed Gulfsands Petroleum holding the remaining 40 per cent. Gulfsands chief executive Ric Malcolm said the company was looking forward to the drilling.
“As the prospect is reasonably close to existing infrastructure, a commercially attractive discovery will have the potential to be developed and brought into production quite rapidly," he said.