Harvest expects to close Indonesian upstream acquisition H1 2008

Houston-based oil, gas firm Harvest Natural Resources Inc. expects to close acquisition of 47 percent working interest in Budong-Budong PSC onshore West Sulawesi in the first half of 2008.

Harvest announced in January 2008 the acquisition of Budong-Budong interest from Tately Budong-Budong NV.

Under the deal Harvest will fund 100 percent of the first US$17.2 million of seismic and drilling costs to earn its 47 percent interest.

The company said the PSC partners are acquiring 2-D seismic data on a portion of the Budong PSC and expected to complete the acquisition, processing and interpretation of the seismic data later this year. Upon completion of the seismic, the Budong PSC partners expect to drill one well in the Karama sub-basin and one well in the Lariang sub-basin, the company said.

?We have identified leads in both the Karama and Lariang sub-basins with prospective resources in the range of 50 to 100 million barrels each should they mature into drillable prospects," the company said.

?The Budong PSC, located onshore West Sulawesi, will provide Harvest with exposure to significant resource potential in a basin with a demonstrated active petroleum system. Exploration in the West Sulawesi Foldbelt (WSFB) is immature due to previously difficult jungle terrain, which is now more readily accessible. Recent seismic surveys over the offshore portion of the WSFB have greatly improved the understanding of the geology and enhanced the prospectivity of the offshore WSFB and, by analogy, the sparsely explored onshore area.? (alex)