Canada’s Bankers Petroleum Starts Talks on Production Sharing Agreement for New Block in Albania

TIRANA, Dec 7؃anadian oil and gas company Bankers Petroleum said it would immediately begin talks on a production sharing agreement (PSA) on a new oil block in Albania.
Talks became possible after the Albania’s National Agency of Natural Resources accepted Bankers Petroleum’s main terms and conditions for a petroleum agreement for Block F exploration acreage, the Canadian company said in a statement on its website.
The company will aim to submit a final draft PSA by January 2010 for necessary approvals by the government in Tirana, it added.
Block F is located immediately west of the Patos Marinze oilfield, drilled by the company, and covers an area of approximately 740 square kilometers or 185,000 acres. Excluded from the area are three gas fields operated by Albpetrol, the Albanian national oil company. The area contains several seismically defined structural and amplitude anomalies prospective for oil and natural gas.
Bankers Petroleum’s production in Albania averaged 6,258 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in the third quarter of this year, compared to second-quarter production of 6,383 bopd. The company’s production as of the middle of November was 7,100 bopd with 350 bopd shut-in pending well servicing. The company, which plans $44 million in capital expenditures this year, expects an exit production rate of approximately 8,000 bopd for the end of 2009.
Bankers Petroleum Ltd. is a Canadian-based oil and gas exploration and production company focused on developing large oil and gas reserves. In Albania, Bankers operates and has the full rights to develop the Patos-Marinza heavy oil field and has a 100% interest in the Kucova oil field. Bankers’ shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the AIM Market in London, England under the stock symbol BNK.