Savannah Petroleum finds oil bearing sandstones at 5th well

The AIM-listed explorer revealed its discovery at the E1 reservoir unit within the primary Eocene Sokor Alternances objective on Friday, noting that additional pay was thought to potentially exist in the well, but would require confirmation through further technical evaluation and testing.

Savannah said wireline logs indicated that the reservoir's contents were of "good quality" and that its available data indicated "light oil consistent with Savannah's discoveries to date".

Chairman Steve Jenkins said: "Following the Zomo-1 discovery, our maiden exploration campaign in Niger has delivered five discoveries from five wells and resulted in the discovery of more than sufficient oil to enable us to proceed towards our planned 2019 Early Production System."

"This is a fantastic achievement, and we expect the EPS to create a material new revenue stream for our Company. Looking forward, 2019 is set to be an extremely busy time for Savannah Niger on the drilling front."

As of 0840 BST, Savannah shares had slipped 0.48% to 33.04p.