PentaNova Energy Corp. provides an update on the testing of the Istanbul-1 well.

The well, located in the Maria Conchita block in northern Colombia, commenced drilling on February 27, 2018 and reached a total depth of 8,740 feet measured depth (“MD”) on March 21st. When drilling through the Jimol formation indications of gas were seen and open hole logs, run between March 21st and March 24th revealed 88.5 feet of low resistivity, potential gas bearing sands with good reservoir properties.

Based on the interpretation of the open hole logs and mud log, 12 separate intervals covering a total thickness of 62.4 feet were selected and perforated for testing. Six of the perforated intervals were shot over an upper sand package at depths of between 7,912 feet MD and 8,122 feet MD, while the remaining perforations targeted a lower sand package at depths of between 8,429 feet MD and 8,608 feet MD.

From April 06 to April 10, 2018, the well was flow tested with gas and water produced to surface. The well was cleaned up for 33 hours and although steady state conditions were never achieved, the well was flowed through the test separator for a period of 7 hours at an average rate of 350,000 cubic feet of gas per day and 2,100 barrels of water per day with an average salinity 18,200 ppm chlorides. After 14 hours flowing, the accumulated water in the well was impeding the gas flow. A production log (“PLT”) was subsequently run confirming that the majority of water and gas production was coming from four zones with 26 feet of perforations in the upper sand package. The PLT also confirmed that the other potential gas bearing zones (eight zones with 36.4 feet of perforations) were not contributing materially to the observed flow, being impeded by the weight of the water column in the wellbore which severely limited our ability to achieve sufficient drawdown to initiate gas flow from these zones.

Given the PLT results, which indicate that eight potential gas zones were not properly flow tested, the Company plans to secure a workover rig or coiled tubing, with the intent of isolating the water producing intervals in order to flow test the other potential gas bearing zones independently.