Nostra Terra Oil & Gas increases stake in High Plains

Nostra Terra Oil & Gas, the AIM-listed oil and gas producer, has exercised an opportunity to increase its working interest to 20% in the High Plains Prospect, located in Texas.

This has quadrupled the company's original holding and the company said that it is already engaged in the drilling of several wells in its Chisholm Trail Prospect, operated by Ward Petroleum and others.

The largest potential working interest in those wells is also 20% but through the forced pooling and election process unique to Oklahoma, the largest interest obtained so far has been 12.5%, with numerous smaller participations.

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The High Plains Program covers a contiguous area of 42,000 acres (66 square miles), where subsurface mapping, 3D seismic, vertical and horizontal drilling and completion technologies have been applied to several different formations.

The group said that the working interest partners would seek to increase success rates through the application of a new proof of concept. The region was noted in the $2.85bn purchase of Cordillera Energy Partners by Apache Corporation in January, 2012, the company added.

Alden McCall, Chief Operating Officer of Nostra Terra, commented: "We were certainly excited about what we learned in the reentry of the previously drilled well which led to increasing our original working interest from 5% to 6.5%. Moreover, we knew that some potential existed to increase beyond that level. We have now been able to quadrupled our original working interest to 20% in the overall program, the maximum that was available."

Nostra Terra Oil & Gas' share price was up 4.04% to 0.52p at 08:55 on Friday.

MF