In early 2008, the exploration program focuses on the construction of 55km of winter roads and the deployment of five drilling rigs on the Koltogorsky exploration blocks.
Following completion of the roads, Sibir will drill seven exploration wells into oil prospects at depths of 2,600-3,200m. These exploration wells are each expected to take 55 days to drill and set casing. The first exploration well was spudded on October 2007 and reached a total depth of 3,200m in December 2007.
These encouraging results have led Sibir to commission the reinterpretation of 2,500km of previously acquired seismic profiles using vertical seismic profiling data from this well to better understand the potential upside of the remaining target structures and will shoot an additional 180km of 2D seismic in Block-8.
The Koltogorsky blocks cover 520,000 acres with an estimated 970 million barrels of C3 resources, according to Russian classification. The blocks were acquired by Sibir in May 2007 in a private transaction valued at $50 million. Overall exploration expenditure for the program is expected to total $80 million.
