Indonesia's MedcoEnergi Acquire's Chinook's Tunisian Oil, Gas Assets

MedcoEnergi, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Medco Tunisia Petroleum, has agreed to buy 100% of Tunisian oil and gas assets of Storm Ventures International (SVI), a subsidiary of Chinook Energy, for $114.03 million, excluding an amount payable for working capital.

SVI’s interest in Tunisia comprises four exploration areas, two development areas and two production areas with concession periods of either 30 or 50 years. Out of these eight areas, five are located onshore and three are offshore. All of SVI’s blocks are located in prolific hydrocarbon areas.

Five onshore blocks (Adam, Sud Remada, Bir Ben Tartar, Jenein and Borj El Khadra) are located in the Ghadames Basin (the same basin as the Company’s Libya Area 47 is located and where large oil and gas reserves have been discovered with a 90% exploration success rate), while the remaining three offshore blocks (Cosmos, Hammamet and Yasmin) are located in the Pelagian Basin off the northeast coast of Tunisia.

Upon completion of the acquisition, MedcoEnergi anticipates adding 2P reserves and oil-and-gas production (net working interest before royalties, taxes and Government take) by 12.3 MMBOE and 2,800 BOEPD, respectively. Production is envisaged to increase to approx. 16,000 BOEPD from in-fill well drilling of the existing producing block (Bir Ben Tartar) and the development of the Cosmos and Yasmin blocks (scheduled for completion in 2018) is expected to add a further 12.6 MMBOE of 2P reserves.