Manas Petroleum signs farm out term sheet for six blocks in Albania

TIRANA, July 21ؓwiss-based Manas Petroleum said on Tuesday it signed an extended farm-out term sheet with a financial group of international oil and gas investors for six blocks in Albania.
The parties have agreed to keep the terms confidential until the signing of a shareholders’ agreement, Manas said in a statement.
The farm-out is part of Manas’ core strategy of acquiring major oil and gas licenses for prospective under-thrust structures and then limiting the financial burdens and risks associated with the exploration and development.
“With this farm-out Manas could both lift the large exploration potential of blocks A, B, D and E and additionally drill a well to appraise the Sphiragu discovery in blocks 2 and 3,” Manas’s chief executive officer, Erik Herlyn, said in the statement.
The company through its wholly-owned subsidiary DWM Petroleum signed in August 2007 two production sharing agreements for the exploration of the blocks A, B, D and E onshore oilfields in northern Albania, covering approximately 4,000 square kilometers. The blocks are located north of shallow high-sulphur heavy oil production with an estimated 2.7 billion barrels of oil in place and cumulative production of 350 million barrels. The prospective resources of the four blocks total 1.4 billion barrels of light oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to an independent study carried out last January.
In November last year Manas signed a production sharing agreement for blocks 2 and 3 in Albania, which cover approximately 3,400 square kilometers.