16 September 2011, Sweetcrude, London- London-listed Aminex announced Friday that one of its oil wells in Tanzania had an impassable blockage as it took a hit on the stock market.
The Africa and US-focused oil and gas player saw its share price fall by more than 5% after reporting that it was unable to progress past the blockage at its Nyuni-2 well.
Amninex shares fell by 0.38p to 6.38p on London’s main market, where they traded by periodic auction call.
The company’s engineers have now decided to pull back 3,000 metres, above the area of blockage, and to side-track the well in order to by-pass the obstruction.
However it will be several days before the side-track is fully prepared and drilling can be restarted.
Before the blockage was discovered, the company had already spent several days attempting to clear rubber debris from a number of centralisers which broke away from a wireline logging tool.
In a statement, the company said the troubled well was the fourth it had drilled as operator in Tanzania through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Ndovu Resources.
“This well is being drilled using the Caroil Rig-6 to test a Lower Cretaceous age gas target in Neocomian sandstones”, Aminex said.
When drilling is completed, the rig will be used to carry out maintenance work before being rigged down and mobilised to the Ruvuma basin in the country’s southeast, where it is scheduled to commence drilling at another Aminex-operated exploration well later this year, the company said.
Elsewhere in Tanzania, a firm order has been placed with a steel mill for the purchase of coated 6″ line pipe to connect the Kiliwani North 1 gas well to gas processing and transportation facilities on Songo-Songo Island, the statement added.
The well trouble comes less than a week after the company announced it was pulling out of the West Songo Songo (WSS) production sharing agreement in Tanzania due to delays and lack of progress.
