ATP Primes Bit for Shimshon Prospect Offshore Israel

- ATP Primes Bit for Shimshon Prospect Offshore Israel

Monday, August 08, 2011
ATP O&G Corp.

ATP O&G announced an operations update for its properties in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and Offshore Israel. Company-wide production continues to be 24-25 MMBoe/d.

Clipper

ATP commenced well operations with the Diamond Ocean Victory drilling vessel at the Green Canyon (“GC”) Block 300 (“Clipper”) #2 ST#1 during the second quarter of 2011. In July 2011, ATP successfully completed and flow tested the well at 45.6 MMcf per day plus condensate of 4,656 Bbls per day. The well is scheduled to be placed on production in the middle of 2012 after completion of the pipeline and tie-back to existing infrastructure.

After completion of the GC #2 ST #1, the Diamond Ocean Victory will move to the GC #4 well, re-enter and sidetrack the well to the targeted oil zone. All required permit applications have been submitted to the BOEMRE.

ATP operates Clipper and presently owns a 100% working interest.

Gomez Hub

During June 2011, ATP completed and returned to production the Mississippi Canyon (“MC”) Block 711 #5 well bringing to six the number of wells producing at Gomez. The development drilling plan (“DOCD”) for MC 711 #9 and MC 711 #10 were deemed submitted to the BOEMRE on June 8, 2011. Upon approval of the DOCD and the well permits, ATP expects to commence drilling at MC 711 #9 and #10 with first production expected mid-2012. The exploration plan has also been submitted for MC Block 710, a block immediately adjacent to MC 711 which displays similar seismic and technical characteristics to MC Block 711. Original proved reserve estimates of the Gomez Hub accounted for 14.8 MMBoe. Since commencement of production through June 2011 the Gomez Hub has already produced gross volumes of 24.8 MMBoe (66% oil).

ATP operates the deepwater Gomez Hub, has a 100% working interest in MC 711, 710 and 755, a 75% working interest in MC 754 and owns 51% of the ATP Innovator through a partnership with GE.

Telemark Hub

The MC Block 941 A-1 (#3) continues to produce as expected from the commingled C and D sands. Since inception, October 2010 through June 2011, the well has produced gross volumes of 2.8 MMBoe (85% oil and 15% gas). Based on the strong performance of the #3 well to-date, ATP expects to recover from the #3 and #4 wells all of the reserves that were initially projected from the C and D sands. Current water production of approximately 950 barrels per day is from the D sand which is to be expected since the downdip well, originally drilled by Vastar, was wet. Water cut is expected to increase until the D sand in the well, which represents less than 2% of the total proved and probable reserves of the Telemark Hub, is depleted, at which time the D sand sleeve will be closed. The ATP Titan, the floating production facility that services the Telemark Hub, has the capacity to process 25,000 Bbls of oil/day, 50 MMcf of gas/day and 15,000 Bbls of water/day.

Currently the MC Block 941 A-2 (#4) well is being completed; productive intervals in the C and D sands have been perforated and independently frac-packed. All remaining permits to complete this well have been approved, and remaining operations include running tubing, reconfiguring to allow flow testing the well and turning the A-2 to sales. First sales from the MC Block 941 A-2 are expected in the third quarter.

The MC Block 942 #2 well, which is already drilled to approximately 12,000 feet, will be drilled to total depth upon approval of the drilling permit by the BOEMRE and following the completion of the MC Block 941 A-2 well. ATP plans to complete drilling the well in the fourth quarter and expects first production by year-end.

ATP operates the deepwater Telemark Hub with a 100% working interest and owns 100% of the ATP Titan and associated pipelines and infrastructure.

UK North Sea

During the second quarter, the work on the Octabuoy floating production facility continued in the shipyard. Hull construction is on schedule and completion is expected early in 2012. Platform topsides are under construction in China (the utility module) and the US (the processing module). Upon completion of the processing module it will be shipped to China to be joined with the utility module. The hull and topsides will then sail to Norway for final commissioning and on to the Cheviot field in the North Sea where production is expected to begin in 2014.

In addition to Cheviot, ATP is working on its Skipper and Blythe projects in the UK North Sea. At Skipper, an oil project, an appraisal well to test production rates is scheduled for next year. At Blythe, predominately a gas project, discussions are ongoing to determine the most economic offtake route for the gas from this field. Development at Blythe is expected to commence in 2013. Skipper is located in the central UK North Sea in water depths of approximately 300 feet. Blythe is located in the Southern Gas Basin in water depths of approximately 100 feet. ATP operates both Skipper and Blythe and has a 50% working interest ownership in each.

Israel Expansion

During June 2011, through its subsidiary ATP East Med B.V., ATP acquired interests in three deepwater licenses in the Mediterranean Sea offshore Israel. ATP will operate its licenses, Shimshon, Daniel East and Daniel West, with a working interest of 40%. In the Mediterranean Sea, ATP licenses relate to exploratory prospects where drilling has occurred nearby and hydrocarbons have been discovered by others. ATP capital investment in the Mediterranean Sea is expected to be minimal for the remainder of 2011 as ATP prepares its exploratory and development plans for drilling in 2012.

ATP East Med, as operator of the licenses, has assumed the drilling contract with Transocean Drilling Israel Ltd. for the Sedco Express drilling unit at the Shimshon location where it anticipates initial drilling during the second quarter 2012. ATP expects to spend between $24 and $29 million during 2012 related to the initial exploratory well on the Shimshon license for its 40% working interest.

ATP notes that Isramco Negev, its partner in Shimshon, on March 6, 2011 reported that it received an independent reservoir engineering evaluation from Lockwood & Associates estimating gross potential natural gas reserves at Shimshon. According to Isramco Negev, "Lockwood & Associates considers the calculated assessment of the total geological and geophysical exploration probability of success of 20 percent to be reasonable. Lockwood said its high estimate was for 3.4 TCF, the low estimate was 1.5 TCF and its best estimate was 2.3 TCF."

Additional information on the Daniel East and Daniel West licenses will be provided as drilling and exploration plans are approved. ATP East Med is also party to two other licenses in offshore Israel which are awaiting approval by the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructure. ATP continues to evaluate acquiring other licenses in the Mediterranean Sea.

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Israel Seeking UN Opinion on Maritime Border Dispute with Lebanon

- Israel Seeking UN Opinion on Maritime Border Dispute with Lebanon

Tuesday, July 12, 2011
OilPrice.com
by Joao Peixe

According to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Tel Aviv will shortly seek a UN opinion on its Mediterranean maritime borders with Lebanon.

The Israeli’s governmental request would be an extraordinary move, giving its constant complaining about UN arbitrariness over the past five decades.

At issue are recently discovered offshore gas fields, the frontiers of which Lebanon heatedly disputes.

Lieberman told the Israeli media, "We will soon be presenting the United Nations headquarters in New York with our position on our maritime borders. We have already concluded an agreement on this issue with Cyprus... Lebanon, under pressure from Hezbollah, is looking for friction, but we will not give up any part of what is rightfully ours."

Lebanon argues the offshore gas fields are inside its territorial waters as delineated by the 1982 United Nations conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS convention) and, as Israel does not have officially demarcated maritime borders with Lebanon, the two countries technically remain at war, NOW Lebanon news agency reported.

The two biggest known offshore natural gas fields prospected so far, Tamar and Leviathan, lie off Israel's northern city of Haifa.

The fiscal implications of the dispute are immense, as the Tamar field is believed to hold at least 238 billion cubic meters of extractable natural gas reserves, while Leviathan site is believed to have reserves of 450 billion cubic meters.

Lebanon has warned Israel against taking "unilateral steps" on its maritime borders, with Lebanese President Michel Suleiman cautioning the Israeli government against taking unilateral actions of "the kind that Israel commonly makes in violation of international law."

(Joao Peixe is Deputy Editor with OilPrice.com. The original article appears here.)

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Zion O&G Reaches TD at Israel Well

- Zion O&G Reaches TD at Israel Well

Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Zion O&G Inc.

Zion O&G has reached its target depth of approximately 19,357 feet (5,900 meters) in drilling its Ma'anit-Joseph #3 well into the Permian geologic layer in Northern Israel. The Company is now preparing for open-hole logging operations, planned to commence this week.

Zion also announced that its shares of Common Stock were added to the preliminary list of both the Russell Global Index and the U.S. broad-market Russell 3000(R) on June 10, 2011. Russell Investments will publish the final inclusion lists of its indexes on June 27, 2011.

Zion's inclusion is part of the Russell's regular reconstitution of its U.S. equity indices each year. Russell indexes are widely used by investment managers and institutional investors for index funds and as benchmarks for both passive and active investment strategies. An industry-leading US $3.9 trillion in institutional assets currently are benchmarked to them.

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Zion O&G Applies for Israel Exploration Permit

- Zion O&G Applies for Israel Exploration Permit

Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Zion O&G Inc.

Zion O&G announced that on June 13, 2011, the Company submitted an application to the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner's Office, requesting the grant of a new petroleum exploration permit area adjacent to Zion's Joseph License area. The new permit application has been named by Zion, the "Asher-Joseph Permit Application".

The Asher-Joseph Permit Application area covers approximately 80,000 acres of land and is to the west and south of Zion's Joseph License area. It is onshore Israel and traverses a section of land, adjacent to the coastline, between Haifa and Tel Aviv. The grant of a permit would allow us to conduct, on an exclusive basis through a specified period, preliminary investigations to ascertain the prospects for discovering petroleum in the area covered by the permit. Unlike a license area, where test drilling may take place, no test drilling is allowed on a permit area.

Zion's Chief Executive Officer, Richard Rinberg, said, "We have three applications for new exploration areas pending before the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner's Office: the Asher-Joseph Permit, the Zebulun Permit and the Dead Sea License.

"We continue to implement our exploration and drilling program and build on our progress to date. If granted the new exploration areas, we intend to acquire additional seismic and other geological and geophysical data, as we work towards refining potential drilling prospects.

"Currently, drilling operations at our Ma'anit-Joseph #3 well continue. We have reached our target depth of approximately 19,357 feet (5,900 meters), in the Permian geologic layer in Northern Israel, and are now preparing for open-hole wireline logging operations, planned to commence this week. Depending on the outcome of our wireline logging and subsequent interpretation, we may determine to drill this well deeper."

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ATP Acquires Licenses Offshore Israel

- ATP Acquires Licenses Offshore Israel

Monday, June 13, 2011
ATP O&G Corp.

ATP O&G and its wholly-owned subsidiary ATP East Med have acquired the Shimshon, Daniel East and Daniel West licenses in offshore Israel and the Israeli government has approved these licenses. Based on the acquired licenses, ATP through ATP East Med anticipates spending between $3 and $5 million in 2011 in offshore Israel for acquisition costs, seismic and preliminary exploration plans.

ATP East Med, as operator of the licenses, has assumed the drilling contract with Transocean Drilling Israel Ltd. for the Sedco Express drilling unit at the Shimshon location where it anticipates initial drilling during the second quarter 2012. ATP expects to spend between $24 and $29 million during 2012 related to the initial exploratory well on the Shimshon license for its 40% working interest.

ATP notes that Isramco Negev, its partner in Shimshon, on March 6, 2011 reported that it received an independent reservoir engineering evaluation from Lockwood & Associates estimating gross potential natural gas reserves at Shimshon. According to Isramco Negev, "Lockwood & Associates considers the calculated assessment of the total geological and geophysical exploration probability of success of 20 percent to be reasonable. Lockwood said its high estimate was for 3.4 TCF, the low estimate was 1.5 TCF and its best estimate was 2.3 TCF."

Additional information on the Daniel East and Daniel West licenses will be provided as drilling and exploration plans are approved. ATP East Med is also party to two other licenses in offshore Israel which are awaiting approval by the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures.

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Gustavson to Interpret, Evaluate Offshore Israel Licenses

Gustavson to Interpret, Evaluate Offshore Israel Licenses

Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Adira Energy Ltd.

Adira Energy Ltd. announced Tuesday that Gustavson Associates, LLC has been contracted to provide resource interpretation and evaluation of Adira's offshore licenses.

Adira Energy has formally contracted Gustavson of Boulder, Colorado, to provide professional, geophysical, petrophysical, geological and engineering services for resource interpretation and evaluation on each of its three offshore Israel licenses, "Gabriella", "Yitzhak" and "Samuel". Gustavson is an internationally recognized team of resource industry specialists acknowledged for their technical capacity to provide expert opinions on resource evaluation geotechnics and economics. Adira Energy, as Operator on the Gabriella and Yitzhak licenses and as Co-Operator on the Samuel license, has contracted Gustavson, to independently evaluate all three licenses. The Company has recently completed 3D geophysical programs on Gabriella and Yitzhak, and the first phase of processing (often termed "Fast Track") is now complete, and detailed processing is underway by CGG Veritas. The Samuel 3D contractor, ARIS Nefterazvedska LLC of Moscow is currently mobilizing, to complete an Ocean Bottom Cable deployed survey. Other regional data is to be obtained in order to provide initial characterization.

Colin Kinley, Adira Energy President and COO stated: "Contracting Gustavson to complete three independent reports on our licenses is a significant step forward on the Company time line. Adira's highly qualified in-house team, together with our respective partners, are continuing to evaluate the targets. Gustavson support will provide adequate assurances of the quality of our resource and the selection of our targets. We are focused on independent oil targets on each license and are encouraged by the quality of the data obtained from the geophysical program."

Yael Reznik Cramer, interim CEO of the Company confirmed: "We believe that the potential exists for significant oil in Israel. As in the gas discoveries, early indications defining the fundamentals exist. Gustavson and our team are focused on defining and proving out oil and gas targets that, in the event successful, will be meaningful both to Adira and Israel."

Kinley adds: "We anticipate completion of resource evaluation on Yitzhak, Gabriella and Samuel by the end of the third quarter. Assuming Fast Track quality is sufficient to support further quantification, the Company will engage an independent major consultancy firm to establish economic risking of the targets, and an anticipated valuation of each of the blocks. Adira is focused on establishing credible targets and valuations thereof to define their drilling schedules."

Stock Option Grant

The Company also announces the granting of incentive stock options to purchase an aggregate of 505,000 common shares of Adira Energy to an officer and a number of employee recipients. The stock option grants are all subject to regulatory approval. Terms of the options include an exercise price of $0.60 per common share, and a vesting schedule allowing for the vesting of 12.5% of the options granted every six months with the initial amount vesting on the date that is six months from the date hereof, resulting in the options being fully vested on November 2, 2015. The options expire on May 2, 2016.

Gustavson Associates is a global consulting firm consisting of geologists, geophysicists, engineers, land and contract managers as well as economists and financial experts who solve problems on all aspects of natural resource evaluations. This work ranges from the first steps of prospecting to design and assessment of production facilities. Multi-lingual capabilities include Spanish, French, German, Russian, Chinese, Farsi, and Arabic.

Adira Energy Ltd. explores for oil and gas in and offshore Israel. It has four petroleum exploration licenses; the Eitan, Gabriella, Yitzhak and Samuel Licenses. These licenses are located respectively on-shore in the Hula Valley of Northern Israel, 10 km offshore between Netanya and Ashdod, 17 km offshore between Hadera and Netanya and adjacent to the coast between Ashkelon and Bat-Yam.

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Expro Wins Noble Contract Offshore Israel

Expro Wins Noble Contract Offshore Israel

Monday, April 18, 2011

Expro International Group

Expro has been awarded a $27million (£17million) contract offshore Israel.

Noble Energy has awarded Expro a contract for deepwater operations onboard the Transocean Sedco Express for the Tamar field development and the Pride North America for an exploration program.

The contract will see Expro provide Noble Energy Inc with specialist well testing and subsea services and equipment, including a high flow rate well testing package and large bore subsea safety systems.

Expro has a long and distinguished track record in providing tailor-made solutions to the oil and gas industry and offers the complete package of services and products to support operators throughout their exploration and appraisal well tests.

Expro's market-leading subsea safety systems provide reliable and efficient in-riser landing strings for well interventions and completions. Expro is already well established in the deepwater regions of the world, including Africa, Gulf of Mexico and Brazil, with its superior technology in greater demand as development progresses in the world's deepwater provinces.

This is the largest single project ever conducted from Expro's Continental Europe base. It is also a major expansion in Expro's geographical area.

Keith Palmer, Expro's Europe CIS regional director, said, "Expro's track record in deep water means we are well positioned to move in to new markets and bring the benefits of our leading-edge technologies to our customers. This is a significant win for Expro's Continental Europe team."

Zion O&G Notified of New Exploration License in Israel

Zion O&G Notified of New Exploration License in Israel

Thursday, April 14, 2011
Zion O&G Inc.

Zion reported that the Israeli Petroleum Commissioner's Office, on behalf of the State of Israel, has notified Zion that it will be awarded a new petroleum exploration license on land within Zion's previous (and now expired) Issachar-Zebulun Permit area. The new license has been named by Zion, the Jordan Valley License. Zion expects to formally receive the license soon.

The Jordan Valley License area is to the east of Zion's Joseph license area and Zion's Asher-Menashe license area and to the south of the Sea of Galilee. It traverses south along the western Jordan River Valley.

Zion's Chief Executive Officer, Richard Rinberg, said, "We are truly excited and very pleased that the State of Israel will award us our new Jordan Valley License. We continue to implement our exploration and drilling program and build on our progress to date. In 2011, we intend to acquire additional seismic and other geological and geophysical data in our new license area, as we endeavor to refine our potential drilling prospects in this area. Meanwhile the drilling operations at our Ma'anit-Joseph #3 well continue, as we strive for our primary target in deep Permian age rock, expected at a depth of over 19,000 feet (5,790 meters). The Ma'anit-Joseph #3 well is already one of the deepest wells ever drilled onshore Israel."

Noble Halts Drilling Ops Offshore Israel

Noble Halts Drilling Ops Offshore Israel

Friday, April 01, 2011
Noble Energy Inc.

Noble has suspended drilling operations at the Leviathan #1 location, which was testing deeper potential in the well, offshore Israel. The Company identified wear on the wellbore casing, requiring additional material and equipment necessary to complete the drilling of the well. Noble Energy is working to secure the needed items, which are not available in Israel.

Sedco Express

As a result, the Company is preparing to move the Sedco Express rig to the Tamar field, where development drilling is anticipated to commence in approximately one week.

The development of Tamar remains on schedule for commissioning in late 2012.
Noble Energy operates Leviathan, offshore Israel in the Rachel license, with a 39.66 percent working interest. Other interest owners are Derek Drilling and Aver Oil Exploration with 22.67 percent each and Ratio Oil Exploration with the remaining 15 percent.

The Company is also the operator of Tamar, offshore Israel in the Matan license, with a 36 percent working interest. Other interest owners are Isramco Negev 2 with 28.75 percent, Delek Drilling and Avner Oil Exploration with 15.625 percent each and Dor Gas Exploration with the remaining four percent.