LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Africa-focussed energy company Chariot announced the start of drilling operations at the Anchois gas project in the Lixus offshore licence, offshore Morocco, on Tuesday.
The AIM-traded firm said the Stena Forth drillship had arrived on-site, with the drilling of the Anchois East well, now named Anchois-3, started.

Chariot holds a 30% stake in the project, alongside the operator Energean at 45%, and ONHYM at 25%.

The drilling and flow testing operations at Anchois-3 were expected to take about two months, with Chariot fully carried for the costs associated with the drilling campaign.

It said the Anchois-3 well was designed with multiple objectives, each targeting different resource potentials within the field.

The initial phase would involve drilling a pilot hole to evaluate the Anchois Footwall prospect, located in an undrilled fault block to the east of the main field, which had an estimated 2U prospective resource of 170 billion cubic feet in the main O Sand target.

Following that, a side-track will be drilled to intersect the discovered gas sands in the Anchois field.

That phase aimed to further assess the 2C contingent resource of 637 billion cubic feet in the eastern part of the main fault block.

The operation would then target the deeper Anchois North Flank prospect, which had an additional 2U prospective resource of 213 billion cubic feet and aimed to de-risk the nearby Anchois South Flank prospect, estimated to hold 372 billion cubic feet.

Subsequent well flow testing would be conducted on selected gas sands to evaluate reservoir and well productivity.

After the tests, the well would be suspended, allowing it to be utilised as a future production well.

"We are very pleased to commence this highly anticipated well at the Anchois gas field," said chief executive officer Adonis Pouroulis.

"We see significant upside potential and value from the prospective resources in the pilot hole and main hole targets which could increase the resource base to over one trillion cubic feet, and we look forward, on success, to moving towards a final investment decision as quickly as possible."

At 1040 BST, shares in Chariot were up 1.63% at 6.75p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.

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