Nighthawk soars on oil success at Jolly Ranch

Nighthawk, a US-focused shale oil development and production company, has said a continuous 24-hour flow test on the John Craig 6-2 well at its 75 per cent owned and operated project at Jolly Ranch in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, Colorado, produced over 600 barrels of oil.

The well tested commercial oil flow rates from the Cherokee shale formation, while three further potential oil-bearing zones have been clearly identified in addition to further Cherokee targets, which have not yet been tested.

Work is now underway to put the well onto permanent production.

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The second well on this four well drilling programme has begun and is running to schedule.

Chairman Stephen Gutteridge said: "The results from the John Craig 6-2 represent a very positive start to our new well drilling programme, and the well is expected to significantly step-up our current production levels. We are delighted with the initial flow rates and we will update on sustainable flow levels once the well has been on production for a few weeks.

"The results are also early confirmation that our geo-science led development strategy to identify the 'sweet-spots' in the Cherokee resource play, coupled with relatively mild formation interaction, yields results. We are looking forward with increased confidence to the next wells in the programme."

The share price leapt 35.71% to 4.75p by 09:06.

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