PETALING JAYA (July 21): Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd has failed to discover petroleum in the Haribo prospect in PL616 located in the Norwegian North Sea.

In a filing today, Hibiscus said the well drilled to extract the targeted oil reserve will be “plugged and abandoned” as efforts to locate the petroleum reservoir failed.

Hibiscus holds a US$500,000 (RM1.91 million) interest in the well.

“The well was spudded on June 21, 2015 by the semi-submersible rig Transocean Searcher in water depth of 70m, some 10km from the Valhall platform in the southern part of the Norwegian North Sea,” the filing stated.

“Drilling was stopped at 3,388m below sea level in the upper cretaceous hidra formation. The well will now be plugged and abandoned, as the targeted high porosity reworked chalk reservoir was not found.

“However, the chalk sequence had zones with fair porosity albeit no permeability with traces of hydrocarbons,” it added.

To recap, Hibiscus announced on June 16 that its jointly-controlled entity Lime Petroleum Norway AS (Lime Norway) will be participating in the drilling of the Haribo prospect in PL616.

The exploration potential of the venture was estimated to be at some 150 million barrels of oil (mmboe) with the geological chance of success at 25%.

Lime Norway is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lime Petroleum Plc, in which Hibiscus Petroleum holds a 35% stake.

Hibiscus said the licence further contains two small oil or gas discoveries in the northern part of the area, and that data is being reprocessed to evaluate the discoveries and associated upside potential of the venture.

The parties in PL616 comprise Edison Norge AS (operator) with a 25% stake, Noreco Norway AS with 20%, Concedo ASA having 20%, Lime Norway with 15%, North Energy ASA owning 15% and Skagen44 AS with 5%.

Hibiscus had also announced on June 23 that Lime Norway revealed that drilling of the Zumba prospect in PL591 located in the Norwegian Sea also failed to yield petroleum, as the target upper jurassic reservoir sandstones were not encountered and therefore, the anticipated hydrocarbon accumulations were not found.

Hibiscus (fundamental: 1.65; valuation: 0.3) holds a net interest of US$1.1 million in the PL591 venture.

Hibiscus shares rose 0.64% or half a sen to 79 sen with 496,200 shares done in the morning session today.

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