Heritage Oil down on Iraq delays

Heritage Oil has been hit by delays to its operations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as it has been forced to create a sidetrack well on its Miran West-3 well.

The well found no measurable flow of hydrocarbons at the Lower Cretaceous level although Heritage believes that existing data and observations made during the dig confirm the area is gas bearing.

Below the Lower Cretaceous reservoir the well encountered a high pressure interval as well as a loss of circulation requiring a change in well design and the well being sidetracked.

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Tony Buckingham, Heritage's Chief Executive Officer, said: "The degree of fracturing and high pressure encountered in these deeper intervals have meant that the drilling programme is taking longer than expected".

Delays are one of the main destroyers of value in the oil and gas sector, as Heritage found out in the aftermath of the announcement; by 08:47 the stock was down 2.7%. Over the last 12 months Heritage Oil shares have fallen 37%.

BS