– UK, London – Block Energy Plc (AIM:BLOE), the exploration and production company focused on the Republic of Georgia, today announced that Christopher (Chris) Brown has been appointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Company’s Board.
Mr Brown, a consultant with nearly 40 years’ experience across the international upstream oil and gas sector, will replace Tim Parson, who is stepping down from the Board to pursue his interests in deep water drilling.
Block Energy Chairman, Mr Philip Dimmock, said: “We are delighted to welcome Chris to the Board at this critical and exciting time for the Company. He brings deep knowledge and experience of managing the discovery, evaluation and development of oil and gas fields. His experience with overseas governments and national oil companies will also be invaluable as we carry out our work programme in Georgia and continue to explore new opportunities across the wider region.
On behalf of the Board and the Block Energy team, I extend warm thanks to Tim for the benefit of his work and the application of his experience over the past year, which helped us prepare for the AIM listing in June and for the implementation of our well work programme.”
About Chris Brown
Educated at Exeter University, Imperial College and the INSEAD Management School, Mr Brown is currently a founding director at MontBlanc Oil & Gas and at Beagle Geoscience, which both provide consultancy and management services to the exploration and production sector.
In the past, he worked at Blue Gate Energy, Silurian Consulting, Aurelian Oil & Gas, Suncor Energy, Enterprise Oil and Shell International, where he took leading roles in establishing and managing oil and gas operations in countries and regions in the UK North Sea, Europe, North Africa and South America. He has extensive experience of managing all types of seismic and well operations, including deep water, shelf, desert, mountain, urban and jungle terrain, and has been a regular speaker and presenter at industry conferences.
About Block Energy
Block Energy is an AIM quoted oil and gas company with a growing portfolio of production, development and exploration assets in the Republic of Georgia. Block holds a 100% Working Interest (‘WI’) in the producing Norio licence, a 90% WI in the producing Satskhenisi licence and a 25% WI in the West Rustavi licence with the right to farm-in to up to a 75% WI. Block’s three licences are contiguous with Schlumberger’s 100% held position in the Kura basin, which at its peak produced c.70,000 barrels of oil per day (‘bopd’) in Georgia and is estimated to hold over seven billion barrels of proven reserves in Azerbaijan and the North Caucasus (Russia).
Block’s licences hold estimated net proven oil reserves of 1.5 million barrels and 61 million barrels unrisked contingent oil resources (‘2C’). The West Rustavi permit has estimated gross unrisked contingent gas resources (2C) of 608 billion cubic feet. Multiple gas discoveries have already been made in the Lower Eocene and Upper Cretaceous within the licence and are on trend with the same play currently being targeted by Schlumberger in the neighbouring Block XIb licence. The estimated cost of gas development and production at West Rustavi is c.US$2.00/Mcf which equates to operating netbacks of c.US$2.6/Mcf (assuming a 75% working interest). Georgia currently purchases its gas for c.US$5.5/Mcf (c.US$600m project value to the Company).
As well as appraising the West Rustavi licence Block is rehabilitating the producing Norio (100% WI) and Satskhenisi fields (90% WI), which will provide immediate production uplift when field operations commence in Q3. The near-term target is to increase production from 15 to 900 bopd within 18 months through a low cost, low risk workover and sidetrack programme, and then to use the cash flow to drill horizontal wells and sidetracks to augment production to c.2,000 bopd. Oil production on these fields offers excellent netbacks, with the current cost of production of c.US$25 per barrel providing netbacks of c. US$30-35 per barrel.
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