Bowleven hits new high on drilling results

Shares in Bowleven soared to another 52-week high as the West Africa-focused oil explorer announced another promising result from test drilling.The Sapele-1 exploration well drilling in the Douala Basin, offshore Cameroon, has encountered further log evaluated pay in the Miocene reservoir objective. This pay is in addition to that encountered at the Lower and Deep Omicron discoveries announced on 9 November 2010.Since 9 November the depth of the well has been increased by 123 metres to a depth of 3,483 metres, in order to find a suitable point to set casing before drilling ahead into the cross-cut event.The initial results from this section indicate that the well has intersected additional net hydrocarbon pay of 6 to 8 metres in high quality reservoir sands with an average porosity of 21%.Bowleven now proposes to drill to a depth of around 4,450 metres to test further prospective horizons. Drilling is expected to take 20 to 30 days."Whilst we recognise that further evaluation and appraisal are required, the additional pay encountered in the Miocene section provides further support to our view that the Omicron discoveries are potentially transformational," said Kevin Hart, chief executive of Bowleven.