Imperialannounced the attainment of two significant operational milestones with regard to pipeline transportation of its oil to market and the material increase in Group production to 8,500 bopd.
Transportation
Oil from Imperial’s Maiskoye Field, Block 70, Tomsk, Western Siberia, Russian Federation, is now flowing through the company’s US$15 million Maiskoye Field Processing Facility, along Imperial’s own 159 km pipeline and into the Transneft national transport system at the Luginetskoye station.
Transneft has provided the company with written permission for the flow of oil which is now being sold into the market. First cash receipts from sales of the pipeline oil are due to be received before the end of the first week of November.
The current rate of production from Maiskoye is in excess of 6,000 bopd from 4 horizontal wells. Another 5 more wells, of which 3 are horizontal, will be brought on line before the end of the year with the expectation of increasing production significantly.
For a short period Imperial is making use of a third party’s tie-in facilities at Luginetskoye pending commissioning of Imperial’s own tie-in facility projected for November 2008. The Zavyalovo tie-in for Imperial’s second pipeline from its Snezhnoye field is expected to be commissioned at the same time.
The Maiskoye field benefits from a 20 year production licence extending to March 2027. The C1 and C2 Russian Registered Reserves on that field amount to some 60 mmbbls with SPE 2P reserves of 72 mmbbls estimated by DeGolyer and MacNaughton (“D & M”). Both those reserve figures are now one year old and were attained before the extensive and successful 2007 drilling and production programme which it is anticipated will result in reserve increases. Application to the relevant Russian authorities will be made before the end of the year for review of the Russian Registered Reserves and the SPE reserves will also be reviewed by D & M for their Spring 2008 report.
Production
Aggregate production from Imperial’s two current producing fields, Snezhnoye and Maiskoye, is now running in excess of 8,500 bopd, up 33% from the 6,400 bopd as at the last update six weeks ago on 10 September 2007, and is expected to increase during the remainder of 2007 as new wells are brought online.
