i3 Energy, an independent oil and gas company with assets and operations in the UK and Canada, announces the following update regarding Serenity.

i3 Energy is aware that the licence for the Tain discovery (previously held by RSRUK and Rockrose Energy) recently lapsed and that the Tain acreage is therefore unlicenced and available to be re-licenced in the future.

The company have been working for some time to advance a solution for the Blake / Tain / Serenity area but this has made little progress whist the previous Tain licensees were unable to approve additional investment. With the acreage now unlicenced, additional options for the area may now come available and i3 and its partner in the Serenity field, Europa Oil and Gas are commencing discussions with the NSTA and other interested parties to explore the remaining potential of the wider area.

Map source: KeyFacts Energy

Serenity Oil Discovery 

In October 2019, the Serenity 13/23c-10 well was successfully drilled on the Company's Serenity prospect and is an oil discovery, with preliminary well results consistent with i3 Energy's pre-drill estimate of 197 MMbbls STOIIP for the entire Serenity closure within the Company's licence area.

The Liberator 13/23c-9 well findings were been integrated with recently acquired seismic data, resulting in Liberator remapping as follows:

• Phase I development area to target 63 MMbbls STOIIP via up to 4 wells with the Company's revised expected recoverable reserves of 23 MMbbls
• Phase II prospective area to target 396 MMbbls STOIIP through future exploration drilling

Well and fluid data from the Serenity 13/23c-10 discovery well encountered sweet, 31.5° API crude in 11 feet of upper Captain oil-bearing sands. The measured oil column on structure, observed through pressure data, was 604 feet true vertical depth (TVD). If the Serenity and neighbouring Tain oil field are in communication as i3 expects, then this infers an oil column height of 1124 feet TVD. On the basis of information recovered from the discovery well, the Company retains its pre-drill estimate of 197 mmbbls P50 STOIIP for Serenity. The Company expects the thickness of the upper Captain sands package to increase, potentially substantially, moving westward along structure, based upon a measured sand thickness of 115 ft true vertical thickness (TVT) immediately west of the Serenity accumulation in the 13/23a-7A well. The 13/23c-10 well has confirmed the strong commercial potential of the Serenity area, and reservoir model simulations demonstrate potential recovery factors above 60%.

Though Liberator wells 13/23c-9 and 13/23c-11 did not meet i3's expectations, the latter confirmed a migration path for hydrocarbons to move westward towards the "Minos High" where the upper Captain sands package is estimated to have a thickness of  circa 200 ft TVT above the oil-water contact. Post-drill mapping of the entire Liberator structure still shows potential in-place resources above 400 MMbbls.

KeyFacts Energy:  i3 Energy UK country profile