Circle Oil announces farm-in agreement

Circle Oil Plc, an oil and gas exploration, development and production company with an attractive portfolio of assets in Morocco, Namibia, Oman, Panama and Tunisia, has signed a farm-in agreement to the Mahdia Permit offshore Tunisia with Tethys Oil and Mining Ltd.

The company claims that the Mahdia permit covers an area of 3780 square kilometres and is bounded by the Nabeul Permit to the north and the territorial boundary with the island of Lampedusa (Italy) to the east.

Historically the geology and potential of this and the surrounding offshore area was successfully explored by Shell and Total and previous exploration has resulted in discoveries and commercial oilfields including fields such as Tazerka, Birsa, Oudna, Halk El Menzel and Isis.

Following the farm-in, Circle will hold a 70% working interest in the permit. Circle will become operator once the acquisition of 500 kilometres of additional 2D marine seismic is complete, prior to the commencement of any drilling in the permit.

The permit commitments require the acquisition of 500 kilometres of 2D seismic in the first two years of the licence which commenced July 2007 and the drilling of one commitment well in the subsequent three years to 2012.

The permit contains multiple undrilled prospects which have already been mapped from the existing datasets.

The additional seismic will be used to enhance ranking and prioritisation of these prospects prior to drilling.