Turkey’s General Directorate of Petroleum Affairs has awarded Valeura Energy Inc., Calgary, 100% working interest in two exploration licenses in southeastern Turkey.
Bostanci License 4985 covers 123,051 acres at the juncture of the Syria and northern Iraq borders, and Karakilise License 5052 covers 122,965 acres near the city of Diyarbakir.
On Bostanci, an area previously known as License 2600, Valeura and partners had spudded the Bostanci-1 well in April 2011 as a farm-in commitment well before the license was canceled for failure to meet the petroleum district's spudding deadline. Valeura reapplied for License 4985 only. Under a prebidding arrangement, Exile Resources Inc., Calgary, the other funding partner in the Bostanci-1 well, has a right to a 50% participating interest in the license.
Bostanci-1, along Iraq’s northern border, was temporarily suspended at 508 m with surface casing set. Valeura believes that the well could be reentered to continue drilling. The primary exploration target at the time was the Cretaceous Mardin Group at 3,300 m.
The Bostanci drillsite is 35 km west of Tawke field in northern Iraq and 12 km northeast of Karatchok field in Syria. Over the next few months, Valeura will update its assessment of the Bostanci prospect and the timing, cost, and funding of an initial exploration well.
The Karakilise license is contiguous with licenses 2674 and 2677, in which Valeura has a 27.5% working interest.
The area is prospective for heavy oil in the Mardin Group and light oil in the Bedinan formation with a number of discoveries in the area. More recently there has been growing interest in unconventional oil and gas exploitation in the Silurian Dadas shale source rock that sits above the Bedinan. A number of companies are active in the area, including most recently Shell which has farmed in on several licenses held by the Turkish national oil company to the north and contiguous with License 2677.
Valeura has been active in this area since late 2010 and has shot 227 km of 2D seismic, carried out a successful well recompletion in the Mardin Group in the Karakilise-1 well on License 2677, and drilled a Mardin Group and Bedinan formation discovery in the Altinakar-1 well on License 2674.
