UK

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 5 – Xcite Energy Ltd., Aberdeenshire, UK, said Challenger Minerals (North Sea) Ltd. will provide $4 million of the cost of drilling the 9/3b-R well to earn a 4% working interest in Bentley heavy oil field in the UK North Sea.

The well is to be drilled in mid-2010. Bentley crude is 10-12° gravity and has a large vacuum gasoil cut, low sulfur and low metals, and high aromatic and naphthenic content, in the Upper Paleocene Dornoch reservoir at 3,700 ft true vertical depth subsea.

Bentley and surrounding prospects are to be developed with fixed platforms in 113 m of water 100 miles east of the Shetland Islands. Production is to start at the end of 2013.