Prospex Ups Spanish Gas Position

AIM-listed Prospex Oil and Gas has exercised its option to increase its interest in the Tesorillo project in southern Spain to 15% from 2.5%, it said December 17. Prospex, which focuses on onshore and shallow offshore European opportunities with short timelines to production, is working towards buying a 49.9% interest in Tesorillo exercising further options.

Tesorillo covers 38,000 hectares in a proven hydrocarbon region and contains a known gas discovery, which reservoir engineers Netherland Sewell and Associates in 2015 estimated could hold gross unrisked prospective resources of 830bn ft³, with upside in excess of 2 trillion ft³. 

Prospex has two other onshore projects: 50% in Suceava in Romania where gas production recently began, generating the company's first cash-flow; and a 17% interest in the Podere Gallina Permit in the Po Valley region of Italy, which is moving towards first production. 

Prospex's non-executive chairman, Bill Smith, said the decision to pay €153,250 ($174,581)was an easy one, as "it is a much larger variant of the fore-deep play which Prospex successfully tested in Romania and in Italy. With this in mind, we look forward to progressing our ongoing work programme in Tesorillo, which is centred on further de-risking the company-making potential resources already identified on the licence, ahead of a future drilling programme".