LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Morocco-focussed upstream gas company Sound Energy announced the award of the production concession relating to the Tendrara gas discovery in Eastern Morocco by the Moroccan Ministry of Energy on Thursday.
The AIM-traded firm said the award covered an area of 133.5 square kilometres, and followed an application by the company and its partners in June.

It said the field development plan underpinning the award included the drilling - pre-first gas - of up to five new horizontal development wells, in addition to recompletion of the existing TE-6 and TE-7 wells.

The plan also included the construction of a gas treatment plant and compression station (CPF), and a 120 km 20-inch 'Tendrara Gas Export Pipeline' (TGEP) connecting the CPF and the delivery point to the Gazoduc Maghreb Europe pipeline.

As it had already announced, front end engineering and design was underway for both the CPF and TGEP.

It also involved the achievement of first gas in approximately two years at an expected mid-case production rate of around 60 million standard cubic feet per day over a minimum period of 10 years, during which it was currently estimated - subject to the optimisation of drilling plans - that an additional 10 to 13 wells would be drilled to maintain this production rate.

The company said it expected to be in a position to take a final investment decision on the Tendrara development once key development milestones had been secured, including a gas sales agreement, FEED development capital funding and local regulatory administrative formalities.

On 7 June, Sound announced that it had signed heads of terms with a consortium comprising Enagas, Elecnor and Fomento for the FEED and conditional construction and financing of all the infrastructure required, including the TGEP and CPF under a 'build-own-operate-transfer' structure.

"I am delighted with the award of the first development concession in Eastern Morocco, which is a critical step in commercialising our gas discovery," said Sound Energy chief executive officer James Parsons.

"The company continues to make excellent progress on all fronts, including FEED, the gas sales agreement and ground works at TE-9."

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