Baron Oil gets green light for Peru drilling

Latin America-focused Baron Oil hailed a "major breakthrough" as it gained approval for a drilling operation and said one of its blocks was likely to hold more oil than expected.

Baron, formerly known as Gold Oil, said Perupetro had given the go-ahead to drill on its Z-34 block, which is estimated to hold about two billion barrels of oil worth $2.6bn.

The company said it had also completed a study of its Block XXI which highlighted the southern portion of this block as a significantly higher potential hydrocarbon area than previously understood.

Chairman and chief executive Rudolph Berends said: "Obtaining approval from Perupetro for a well to be drilled on Block Z-34 is a major breakthrough for the Company and we are looking forward to making more progress in 2015 to exploit the vast potential of our assets both onshore and offshore Peru".