PetroTal Corp. (“PetroTal”) (PTAL) is pleased to announce that drilling of the Company’s second horizontal well (“5H”), located on the Bretana field, Peru, is progressing according to budget and timeline. The well reached the target Vivian formation at the prognosed vertical depth of 2,696 meters and 700 meters of the planned 870 meters horizontal section have been drilled, which is inside the main productive oil reservoir. Completion of the well, tie-in, and initial production tests are expected to commence on or before December 15, 2019.
The Company also expects to complete commissioning of the Central Production Facilities (“CPF-1”) during the week of December 22, 2019, increasing the nominal production facility capacity to 10,000 barrels of oil per day (“BOPD”) and 40,000 barrels of water per day (“BWPD”). Based on our recent field production experience of being able to produce 8,000 BOPD with a facility having 5,000 BOPD nominal capacity, management similarly expects that CPF-1 will be able to handle in the order of 15,000 BOPD.
In light of management’s confidence that the 5H will behave similarly to the 4H well, which produced 200,000 barrels of oil in just 35 days, and that the CPF-1 will handle more than its nominal oil processing capacity, the Company is pleased to increase its year-end production guidance from 10,000 BOPD to 11,000 – 13,000 BOPD.
Manolo Zuniga, President and Chief Executive Officer stated:
“We are delighted with the progress made on the 5H well and the commissioning of the CPF-1 facilities. We set ourselves an ambitious target of achieving 10,000 BOPD by year-end 2019, so to exceed this is of great testament to the team we have assembled. I would like to congratulate our operations and drilling team for executing at an extremely high level since we started operations two years ago, and showcasing that we can handle more oil than the equipment’s nominal capacity which is now allowing us to forecast higher 2019 exit oil rates and, importantly, a strong production base as we enter 2020.”
