KUALA LUMPUR (May 18): Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd’s jointly-controlled entity Lime Petroleum Norway AS (Lime Norway) will be participating in the drilling of a wildcat exploration well in the Zumba prospect in PL591 in late May 2015.

In a press statement today, Hibiscus Petroleum (fundamental: 1.65; valuation: 0.3) said Tullow Oil Norge AS1 (Tullow) is the operator of the license, and that Tullow is targeting hydrocarbon potential in sandstones of the Upper Jurassic Rogn formation.

It said the well will be drilled to a vertical depth of 3,000m and that the drilling will take an estimated 50 days, with an extension of another 8 days in the event of a discovery that requires extended sampling and logging.

“According to North Energy ASA (North Energy)’s fourth quarter 2014 presentation dated Feb 12, 2015, the gross mean unrisked exploration resources at the Zumba prospect has 256 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) with the geological chance of success estimated at 27%,” said Hibiscus Petroleum.

It said the parties to the PL591 license are Tullow Oil with 60% interest, North Energy with 15%, and Lime Norway with the remaining 25%.

The well, designated as 6507/11-11, will be drilled using Ocean Rig’s semi-submersible Leiv Eiriksson in water depth of 272m in the Halten area of the Norwegian Sea, about 14km south-east of the Heidrun platform, it added.

“We look forward to be working with Tullow Oil, a reputable and established operator.

“Whilst geologically, we are cautiously optimistic with this prospect and hope that our partnership with Tullow Oil will yield a positive result, the spudding of this well also signals the commencement of a drilling sequence of 5 offshore wells over the next 6 months in both Norway and Australia,” said Hibiscus Petroleum's managing director Dr Kenneth Pereira.

Tullow is part of the Tullow Oil Plc Group, which is a leading independent oil company with over 130 licences in in 22 countries.

Hibiscus Petroleum added that apart from PL591, its 2015 drilling plans for its licenses includes PL616 in Norway (operated by Edison Norge AS) estimated spud time in June; VIC/P57 in Australia (operated by Carnarvon Hibiscus Pty Ltd) estimated spud time in July or August 2015; PL708 and PL544 in Norway (operated by Lundin Norway AS), estimated spud time in November 2015 and late 2015, respectively.

Hibiscus Petroleum closed 1.5 sen or 1.9% lower at 77.5 sen today, giving it a market capitalisation of RM713.61 million.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)