Oil company aims to start drilling before end of next year

Mediterranean Oil and Gas aims to start drilling at Malta before the end of the year, the company’s chief executive said. Upstream, an international oil and gas news source, reported that Genel Energy’s Area 4 off Malta holds 260 million stock tank barrels of prospective resources, according to an independent analysis commissioned by MOG, a junior partner. The license is wholly owned by MOG but Genel Energy has bought 75 per cent of play under a $10 million farm-in, that was the subject of controversy and legal threats from Leni Gas & Oil. Leni sold its 10 per cent share of the play to MOG for $1 weeks beforehand. “If proven by drilling, the prospects identified at the Eocene/Palaeocene can be economically viable on a stand-alone basis,” MOG chief executive Bill Higgs said. He said that the company aimed to see drilling on the first prospect before the end of next year pending approval of the Genel Energy farm-in.