San Leon boosted by "significantly improved" Moroccan data

NovaSeis, San Leon Energy's (SLE) wholly-owned subsidiary, has acquired more than 2,280 kilometres of 2D seismic across its Tarfaya and Zag Licences onshore Morocco.

"We view Morocco as a long-term project for the company with significant upside over a huge unexplored area," commented chairman Oisin Fanning. "The excitement of the potential of Morocco is based upon the significant production in the same basin in Algeria as well as the huge potential for a Silurian shale gas play," he added.

Of the 2,280km, 608km of high-density 2D seismic data was acquired on the northern portion of the San Leon-operated Tarfaya Licence across the J North prospect, which was estimated to hold 156 million barrels of recoverable prospective oil resources, with upside potential of more than half a billion barrels.

However, the company said that the new seismic data quality was "significantly improved" compared to previous 2D seismic data in the area due to "longer offsets and higher density acquisition". The new data is currently being processed and interpreted by San Leon.

The remaining 1,674km of 2D seismic data was acquired across the San Leon operated Zag Licence, the first seismic data ever acquired across the licence.

"The company is focusing on the Zag Licence for both conventional and unconventional oil and gas potential," it confirmed.

Additionally, the oil and gas explorer said that it planned to continue investment into NovaSeis "to expand its capabilities to 3D acquisition this year as part of upcoming seismic acquisition programmes in Poland".

"NovaSeis has helped us acquire high-quality, low-cost seismic and given us the flexibility to acquire more data per line kilometre than we could have using a more conventional cable acquisition system," stated Fanning.

"The next step for NovaSeis is to return to Poland where the wireless system will make a real impact by significantly reducing the surface impacts of seismic acquisition while giving us the flexibility to acquire data in areas that a traditional system would not be possible," he added.

Interested in investing in this sector? Peter Temple's guide to analysing oil companies may come in handy...