KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 15): Petroliam Nasional Bhd's (Petronas) joint venture (JV) company in the Gambia reported that drilling has commenced on the Bambo-1 exploration well in the Gambia's offshore Block A2.

Australia-listed company FAR Ltd's FAR Gambia Ltd is the operator and it has 50% interest in the Gambia's offshore A2 and A5 blocks. The remaining 50% stake is held by Petronas' subsidiary PC Gambia Ltd.

According to FAR's filing with the Australian Securities Exchange, the Stena IceMax drillship arrived on site on Nov 12 Gambian time and after completing preparations, it successfully spudded the well.

The Bambo-1 well is located approximately 85km offshore the Gambia, in 930 metres of water depth.

The well is planned to be drilled to a depth of approximately 3,400 metres and the drilling campaign is expected to take approximately 30 days.

"We are very excited to be drilling offshore the Gambia again and I thank our co-venturer Petronas and the government of the Gambia for their support during a challenging period of uncertainties and delays.

"We're looking forward to working safely and efficiently with our trusted partners at Exceed and Stena. The well will be run as a tight well, and we look forward to announcing drilling results at the appropriate time," said FAR's managing director Cath Norman.

FAR said the well is designed to drill into a series of vertically stacked targets with a combined estimated recoverable, prospective resource of 1,118 mmbbls.

"FAR calculates the chance of geological success for the various horizons to range from 7% to 36%," it added.

At 2.30pm, FAR's share price dipped 1.76% or 1.5 Australian cents to 84 Australian cents, giving it a market capitalisation of A$83.33 million.