The Board of Red Emperor Resources NL (ASX/AIM: RMP) (“RMP”, “Red Emperor” or the “Company”), is pleased to provide a further operational update with respect to preparations for the drilling of the Winx-1 exploration well, located on the Western Blocks, North Slope of Alaska.
Interview published 14th January 2019
Highlights
· Permit to Drill Approved for Winx-1 exploration well
· Ice-road and infrastructure construction progressing as planned
· Spud of the Winx-1 exploration well on schedule for mid-late February 2019
RMP is pleased to announce that the Permit to Drill the Winx-1 exploration well was approved by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (AOGCC) on the 16th January. This key permit was issued without comment and paves the way for rig mobilisation in early February with spudding to occur on schedule mid-late February.
Construction of the approximately 11-mile (18 kilometre) ice road required for mobilisation of the drill rig is almost 50% complete, with construction of the ice pad, from which the Nordic Rig#3 will drill the Winx-1 well, to follow.
Figure 1 – Ice road construction in preparation for mobilisation of Nordic Rig # 3 in February
The Winx prospect is a 3D seismic defined conventional oil prospect in the successful Nanushuk play fairway with a gross mean unrisked prospective resource of 400 million barrels (“MMbbls”) (126MMbbls net to Red Emperor) and is adjacent to the Horseshoe 1/1A discovery well drilled by the Armstrong/Repsol JV in 2017. Refer to the Company’s announcement of 25 June 2018 for further details.
Cautionary Statement: The estimated quantities of petroleum that may potentially be recovered by the application of a future development project(s) relate to undiscovered accumulations. These estimates have both an associated risk of discovery and a risk of development. Further exploration, appraisal and evaluation is required to determine the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons.
Oil Search’s Pikka B well in Alaska encounters hydrocarbons in the Nanushuk formation
It is also worth noting that the first exploration/appraisal well of the season, Pikka-B, has today been reported to have successfully encountered hydrocarbons in the Nanushuk formation with Oil Search describing the results as “very encouraging”. The phenomenal exploration success rate in the Nanushuk continues with this latest discovery and is extremely encouraging to RMP and its partners as we quickly approach Winx-1 spud.
Figure 2 – Winx-1 exploration well, Western Blocks, Pikka B well, Alaska North Slope and Nanushuk Fairway
The primary objective of the Winx-1 exploration well is the Nanushuk Topset play, targeting the Nanushuk 4 and 5 areas of sand. As can be seen in Figure 3, the Winx prospect has been identified using the Nanuq South 3D which covers the third party 2017 Horseshoe discovery plus a large swathe of the “Western Blocks”. Similar amplitude response is observed at the Winx prospect to that seen at the successful Horseshoe well location, which is situated approximately 4 miles (6 kilometres) to the west.
Figure 3 – Winx-1 targeting multiple stacked prospects with strong amplitude support
About Red Emperor Resources NL
Red Emperor Resources NL is an Australian natural resource exploration company listed on both the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX: RMP) and the AIM Market (AIM: RMP). Red Emperor has oil and gas interests on the Alaska North Slope and in South East Asia.
Alaska
Red Emperor has entered into Definitive Agreements with its consortium partners 88 Energy Limited and Otto Energy Limited that will see the Company participate in the drilling of a highly prospective Nanushuk oil trend exploration well on the Alaska North Slope in early 2019. The drill target is immediately adjacent to and a direct analogue of the third party Horseshoe-1/1A oil well drilled in 2017. Horseshoe is part of the billion-barrel plus Nanushuk oil play-fairway, one of the largest conventional oil fields discovered in the US in more than 30 years.
Technical work on the Western Blocks has identified a gross best estimate prospective resource volume of 400 MMbbls (126 MMbbls net to RMP), and a geological chance of success of 25%-35%. The estimated quantities of petroleum that may potentially be recovered by the application of a future development project(s) relate to undiscovered accumulations. These estimates have both an associated risk of discovery and a risk of development. Further exploration, appraisal and evaluation is required to determine the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons.
The relevant interests in the Western Blocks under the commercial agreements (subject to standard regulatory approval by the State of Alaska) are as follows:
RNS Link share-talk.co.uk/announcements/rns/red-emperor-resource
