Urals Energy recommences drilling at Petrosakh

Urals Energy, an independent oil exploration and production company with operations in Russia, has restarted drilling on well 41 at Petrosakh.

The firm said that considerable time has been given to its recovery strategy, which has resulted in the continued strengthening of its balance sheet and further progress on the repayment of its outstanding debts.

This culminated in the "assignment of the long standing loans to Taas-Yuriakh Neftegazodobycha to Nagelfar Trade and Invest Ltd for which the company received $26.0m."

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The company has been able to settle its long-standing dispute with Finfund and Yakut Energy in exchange for the payment of $4.4m by Urals to Finfund, reduce its debt to Petraco Oil Company to around $9.9m, and cover certain other long-standing obligations, as well as fund its ongoing operations.

The company says it is now in a much stronger position than it has been for many years.

At Petrosakh the firm has taken a number of steps to guard against repeating previous mistakes and expects these to lead to the successful finishing of the drilling of well 41 towards the end of May 2012.

The board is currently evaluating the feasibility of returning to export shipments from Petrosakh, particularly of refined products, as well as shifting the emphasis to higher margin products sold on the local market.

NR