roc oil in angola

I don't really follow CVI but from memory their chasing oil leases in Angola?,anyway out of interest,the following about ROC.


Roc heartened by Angola oil find
Email Print Normal font Large font AdvertisementJamie Freed
June 9, 2008

THE chief executive of Roc Oil, John Doran, says his company is encouraged by an oil discovery in Angola.

The Sydney company's Coco-1 onshore well has been suspended as a discovery after producing oil and associated gas during a test last week.

"It's the first flow from Cabinda province for 39 years," Dr Doran said. "There had been a hiatus of activity in onshore Angola, which is changing now."

The well is the fifth in a seven-well program that last year discovered heavy oil at the Massambala-1 well, in a shallower geological sequence. Roc plans to drill up to six appraisal wells at Massambala starting in August, but is encouraged that the Coco-1 well flowed the lighter oil which is more typical of the region.

"There was probably a pre-drill expectation by investors that Coco-1 was going to potentially be small, maybe circa 10 million barrels, but that would be still valuable in today's oil price regime," said a BBY analyst, Scott Ashton.

But Dr Doran said the discovery size was probably somewhat different from the company's pre-drill size expectation, which was never released to the market. "We don't know the size, which is why we didn't comment on it," he said.

Roc will need to undertake further testing of the Coco-1 discovery to determine whether it is commercial, because its initial tests were constrained by technical issues such as a sand influx.

"We don't know whether it is commercial," Dr Doran said. "But it is a discovery. It is well worth going back to. We are encouraged."

Chevron, which owns nearby offshore oilfields, operates infrastructure that could be used to export the oil.

Roc owns 60 per cent of the Cabinda South block and serves as the operator. Roc does not regularly report results from its Angolan exploration program in the same manner as in Australia due to Angolan confidentiality requirements.

Roc plans to start drilling the Sesamo-1 well this month and the Arroz-1 well in August. Both are targeting the same geological sequence as the Coco-1 discovery and an earlier well, Milho-1, which hit uncommercial oil and gas shows.

Mr Ashton said Coco-1's size meant it was not a "company-maker", but it could be important in adding positive sentiment for Roc's exploration in Angola.

"It validates our belief in the area, which some people would have been a bit cynical about, and it validates our strategy - the law of large numbers," Dr Doran said. "You don't go in and drill one well and go away."

Roc shares closed 10c higher at $2.22 on Friday.

A Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst, Anthony Bishop, said a 20 million barrel discovery would be worth 80c a share.