Zenith Energy, which is focused on building a production and development portfolio in Africa, announces that the workover of the Robbana-1 well ("ROB-1"), located within the Robbana concession in Tunisia has been successfully completed. 

Workover of ROB-1

Prior to the commencement of workover operations by Zenith, ROB-1 had not undergone any form of work since 2012, at which time an unsuccessful well intervention had been performed and the well was producing approximately 20 BOPD.

During the course of the workover, significant deposits of paraffin and wax were encountered plugging many of the lower perforations. These have now been cleared by way of reverse circulation of fluid.

The wellbore of ROB-1 was cleaned out to the total depth of 2,225 metres and scraping of the casing, which was found to have good integrity, was performed. Once this work was finalised, a new tubing anchor and sucker rod pump supplied by Weatherford were installed. It was discovered that the previous sucker rod pump was functioning at only 20% capacity and that the well did not have a tubing hanger installed, in contradiction of the 2012 well report.

The Company can now confirm that a Weatherford team has successfully installed a new sucker rod pump in ROB-1, which has been tested on surface and adjusted. A period of 36-72 hours is now required to pump out the well killing fluid and water emulsion from the wellbore before oil production will begin to be received.

Andrea Cattaneo, Chief Executive Officer of Zenith, commented:
"We are very pleased with the successful outcome of the ROB-1 workover which has been our inaugural operational engagement in Tunisia. Our team successfully executed the workover and garnered significant insight into the potentially very material upside potential of the Robbana concession.

Third party geophysical analysis suggests that the Robbana concession has potentially only produced 5-10% of its reserves potential to date.

We intend to report flow rates from ROB-1 shortly, once they have stabilised, and we remain cautiously optimistic about the relatively sizeable production uplift we may be able to achieve from ROB-1 against a backdrop of a highly favourable oil price environment."

KeyFacts Energy: Zenith Energy Tunisia country profile