LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Latin America-focussed Echo Energy updated the market on progress with the reactivation of three wells in the Chorillos field on Tuesday, which it first announced on 10 November.

The AIM-traded firm said the three-well reactivation programme was in addition to the Santa Cruz Sur production and infrastructure enhancement plan, first announced on 7 July, and was prioritised by the Santa Cruz Sur partners in seeking to further increase liquids production from the Chorillos field.

As it previously said, three candidate wells - Cho-10, Cho-13 and Cho-19 - had been offline for four years due to surface constraints, and were identified for reactivation without the use of the workover rig.

Recently-completed infrastructure upgrades removed prior constraints, enabling the wells to be brought back into production.

The company confirmed on Tuesday that operations to reactivate the three wells were successfully and safely completed, with each of them now producing oil through surface lines to a field-storage tank.

Surface commissioning had now begun and, given the length of time that the wells had been offline, infrastructure integrity was being fully confirmed.

That was expected to take several weeks, during which time the flow rate from the wells would be at "intentionally reduced levels" to enable the surface infrastructure to be fully-tested under production conditions.

Following successful commissioning, each well would then be independently assessed with a mobile test unit, to confirm the yet-to-be-determined flow-potential of the cluster.

"The three well reactivation plan is an important operational development for our Santa Cruz Sur assets," said chief executive officer Martin Hull.

"These wells were offline at the time of and prior to Echo's acquisition of an interest in Santa Cruz Sur in 2019 and our ability to safely, and successfully, reactivate these wells back to production is a great example of the breadth of the low-risk opportunity set that exists within our assets."

Hull said the three-well programme was in addition to the previously-announced Santa Cruz Sur production and infrastructure enhancement plan, and in light of the initial success, the firm was "looking forward" to executing similar opportunities, of which it believed there to be many.

"We remain committed to delivering on our strategy to grow production and look forward to reporting further progress."

At 1123 GMT, shares in Echo Energy were flat at 0.24p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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