Frontera moves ahead with Georgian operations

Drilling at Frontera's T-39 well, the third of its current three-well drilling campaign, was expected to be completed later in the month.

Following completion of the drilling operations, testing of the well was expected to kick off before, as previously announced, zones 9, 14 and 15 of the Eldari reservoir were stimulated and produced together.

Zaza Mamulaishvili, Frontera's president and chief executive officer, said, "I am pleased to report very encouraging results of the T-45 well testing program. The flow rate of 270 barrels of light sweet crude oil from only Zones 14 and 15 has slightly exceeded pre-test expectations, including the assumptions incorporated in a sample development well economics presented at the shareholders meeting on 25 January 2018, and potentially has made development well economics much more attractive."

"Very successful current drilling and stimulation operations reconfirmed that the Taribani development wells will require approximately $2.9m to be drilled and frack completed into Zones 9, 14 and 15. Interim test results from Zones 14 and 15, together with successful historical long term test results from Zone 9 and current oil price suggest that we will be recovering cost of each new well in approximately 8 to 10 months with a 10-year Estimated Ultimate Recovery of over 500,000 bbls of oil per well," Mamulaishvili added.

In other news, Frontera announced the retirement of Andrew Szescila from the company's board after more than twenty years of service.

As of 1130 BST, Frontera shares had lost 4.13% to 0.52p.