Dragon Oil PLC (LSE: DGO) said the Dzheitune (Lam) 28/137 and 13/138 wells in the Kaspian Sea offshore Turkmenistan have been completed and successfully tested, in line with the schedule.
The group is progressing the drilling programme in line with the field development strategy and expects to have completed eight wells by the end of 2009.
Dzheitune (Lam) 28/137 and 13/138 are on production with initial combined test rates of 2,141 and 2,511 barrels of oil per day respectively. Further testing and optimisation is scheduled.
The Iran Khazar rig has finished its drilling programme on the Dzheitune (Lam) 28 platform and has been mobilised to the Dzheitune (Lam) A platform, where it has spudded the Dzheitune (Lam) A/139 development well. The Dzheitune (Lam) B platform is expected to be ready for drilling in November 2009.
Rig 40, which drilled the 13/138 well, has skidded to slot 6 on the Dzheitune (Lam) 13 platform to commence drilling the Dzheitune (Lam) 13/140 well.
Dragon Oil (Turkmenistan) Ltd holds 100 percent in and is the operator of the Production Sharing Agreement for the Cheleken contract area. The operational focus is on the re-development of two oil producing fields, Dzheitune (Lam) and Dzhygalybeg (Zhdanov).
At the end of July, the company announced that the Dzheitune (Lam) 28/136 development well was completed on schedule and produced at a rate of 3.291 barrels of oil per day during testing.
When Dragon Oil reported interim results in mid-August, it said it expected more wells to come on stream in the second half with the aim to complete up to 35 wells during the 2009-11 period.
Average gross production in the first half to end-June increased by 11 percent over the previous first half to 42,808 barrels of oil per day from 38,482 bopd, of which 27,782 bopd was attributable to the group, compared with 20,850 bopd previously. It is targeting annual gross field production growth of up to 15 percent on average for 2009-11.
Deagon Oil maintained its debt-free position with a healthy cash balance of US$875.4 million as of June 30, practically unchanged from a year earlier.