Ophir Energy falls as resources upgrade disappoints market

It appears the market is unimpressed with Ophir Energy's latest update, despite the company increasing its resource estimates at one of its sites offshore Equatorial Guinea.

The company claims to have had three better-than-expected results in its drilling programme in what is known as "Block R". All three wells drilled exceeded pre-drilling estimates.

As a result of the programme, the total management estimate of block R recoverable resources has been lifted by more than 300% from 697bn cubic feet, to 3.0trn cubic feet, or 500 million barrels of oil equivalent.

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Ophir has an 80% stake in block R.

"The success of Fortuna West-1 across multiple targets improves our overall understanding of the Fortuna Complex and Viscata Channel Levee Complex within Block R. The well discovered over 1.0trn cubic feet (166 mmboe) of recoverable gas, and has significantly derisked other exploration targets within the Block," said Nick Cooper, Ophir's Chief Executive Officer.

He added the discoveries provided "confidence" to proceed with commercialisation via liquefied natural gas export

Investors were obviously expecting more, Ophir shares were down 4.6% at 9:22.

BS