Independent Oil spuds Elgood development well

The AIM-traded firm said Elgood is the first of five planned development wells in its first phase, and was expected to take around three months to drill and complete.

After that, the rig would move on to Blythe early in the third quarter.

The Noble Hans Deul jack-up rig mobilised from the Cromarty Firth on 1 April, and reached the Elgood field location early on 4 April, the board said.

After preparation and jacking-up, the Elgood well spudded at 1730 on 9 April.

“We are very pleased to have kicked off the phase 1 drilling campaign - another key milestone for the company as we continue to progress towards commercialisation of our core project,” said chief executive officer Andrew Hockey.

“This drilling campaign has been planned meticulously by the Independent drilling, subsurface, subsea and HSE teams since early last year, in collaboration with our main drilling contractors Noble Corporation, Petrofac and Schlumberger and our partner CalEnergy.

“We have a very clear collective focus on ensuring safe and efficient performance leading successfully to first gas in the third quarter of 2021 at the Blythe Hub, before continuing into 2022 at Southwark.”

At 1527 BST, shares in Independent Oil & Gas were up 5.24% at 21.58p.