Pan Orient: Anggun-1 well to be drilled next year

By Romel S. Gurky

TSX-listed Pan Orient Energy Corp said that drilling of the Anggun-1 exploration well at the East Jabung PSC, on shore Jambi, is scheduled for next year.

The company said in a statement Thursday that the 2016 work and budget plan has been approved by the PSC?s operator and the company. ?The time lines for drilling of the Anggun-1 exploration well will be firmed up early in the first quarter of 2016, by which time all approvals should be in place and the access route selected,? Pan Orient said.

Pan Orient had farmed-out a 51 percent participating interest and operatorship of the East Jabung PSC to a subsidiary of Talisman Energy Inc. on June 1, 2015. Planning continues for drilling the first exploration well at the Anggun Prospect, for which the farminee is funding the first US$5 million of Pan Orient's share of the exploration well.

Elsewhere, Pan Orient said the Akeh-1 exploration well at Batu Gajah PSC in onshore Sumatra was drilled during the third quarter of this year and resulted in a natural gas and condensate discovery.

?Technical data obtained in the drilling and testing of the Akeh-1 exploration well is being used to update our understanding of the Akeh prospect and prepare regulatory filings,? it said.

Pan Orient said the next step will be holding discussions with the Government of Indonesia in relation to having the Akeh structure "Released from Exploration Status" as a "conclusive discovery". A successful release would allow the commencement of a "Pre-Plan of Development" study to determine the likelihood of the commerciality of the Akeh-1 discovery, which would be followed (if commerciality is deemed likely) by the compilation and submission of a Plan of Development.

Pan Orient holds a 77 percent stake in the Batu Gajah PSC as the operator.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak