Petroceltic International gets green light on Algeria project

Petroceltic International has reached a milestone in its development plans for its Ain Tsila gas-condensate field after receiving approval from the Algerian Competent Authorities.

The project in Algeria will now move forward into a 30-year development phase following the approvals along with the field's declaration of commerciality in August and an agreement with Sonatrach to market all gas produced.

The approval is conditional on partners committing to initiate certain planning and development works associated with the field next year.

Petroceltic owns a 56.625% interest in Ain Tsila with Sonatrach holding 25% and Enel 18.375%. Petroceltic said it was striving to farm down a further 18.375% of its interest next year.

The approved plan of development will involve the production of gross reserves of 2.1 trn cubic teet of sales gas, 67m barrels of condensate and 108m barrels of liquid petroleum gas.

Brian O'Cathain, Chief Executive of Petroceltic, said: "This approval marks a major milestone for Petroceltic and allows us, along with our partners ENEL and Sonatrach, to move forward to focus on implementing the Development Plan with the goal of achieving first gas in the third quarter of 2017. The regulatory approval of the plan of development should also allow Petroceltic to book the reserves associated with this asset and to finalise the outstanding financial arrangements associated with the farm-in by ENEL which was completed earlier this year."

Development planning will begin next year and first gas is scheduled for the third quarter of 2017.

Shares rose 1.68% to 6.66p at 11:45 Friday for the company which has a market capitalisation of £294.03m.

RD