Xcite Reports on 'Excellent Year'

UK-focused junior Xcite Energy reported Tuesday results for an "excellent year", in which it successfully completed the pre-production well test on the Bentley field in the North Sea, producing and selling more than 149,000 barrels of oil (the firm's first revenue).

Xcite said that the Bentley field is now substantially de-risked and development-ready. Meanwhile, the firm confirmed that it had signed a $155 million reserves-based lending facility that will form the substantial part of the funding requirement for its Phase 1B development of the Bentley field.

Xcite also successfully completed a new equity capital financing for GBP 63.4 million ($96.4 million) as well as new debt financing of $60 million during 2012. The firm's cash balance at year end was GBP 25.4 million ($38.6 million).

The company highlighted its success in the UK's 27th Licence Round, which provided new acreage to its portfolio. Blocks 9/4a, 9/8b and 9/9h add four identified prospects to future exploration and appraisal programs in the wider Bentley area, it said.

Xcite CEO Rupert Cole commented in a company statement:

"2012 has been an excellent year for Xcite, with the successful, and, most importantly, safe, conclusion of a US$250 million project in the North Sea, on time and on budget, which is a testament to the skill and experience of our team. This is an immense achievement by any standards.

"The entire team has worked tirelessly during the well test and in the time since its conclusion in September last year, to re-engineer the reservoir model in order to deliver an updated field development plan based on the excellent data and results from the test.

"The success of last year's project has provided us not only the information but also the confidence needed to be able to deliver our plans to commence the first phase development on Bentley, which will be largely based on scaling up the 2012 pre-production work programme."

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

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Xcite Reports on 'Excellent Year'

UK-focused junior Xcite Energy reported Tuesday results for an "excellent year", in which it successfully completed the pre-production well test on the Bentley field in the North Sea, producing and selling more than 149,000 barrels of oil (the firm's first revenue).

Xcite said that the Bentley field is now substantially de-risked and development-ready. Meanwhile, the firm confirmed that it had signed a $155 million reserves-based lending facility that will form the substantial part of the funding requirement for its Phase 1B development of the Bentley field.

Xcite also successfully completed a new equity capital financing for GBP 63.4 million ($96.4 million) as well as new debt financing of $60 million during 2012. The firm's cash balance at year end was GBP 25.4 million ($38.6 million).

The company highlighted its success in the UK's 27th Licence Round, which provided new acreage to its portfolio. Blocks 9/4a, 9/8b and 9/9h add four identified prospects to future exploration and appraisal programs in the wider Bentley area, it said.

Xcite CEO Rupert Cole commented in a company statement:

"2012 has been an excellent year for Xcite, with the successful, and, most importantly, safe, conclusion of a US$250 million project in the North Sea, on time and on budget, which is a testament to the skill and experience of our team. This is an immense achievement by any standards.

"The entire team has worked tirelessly during the well test and in the time since its conclusion in September last year, to re-engineer the reservoir model in order to deliver an updated field development plan based on the excellent data and results from the test.

"The success of last year's project has provided us not only the information but also the confidence needed to be able to deliver our plans to commence the first phase development on Bentley, which will be largely based on scaling up the 2012 pre-production work programme."

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

MOG Confirms 'Excellent Permeability' at Italy Well

Mediterranean Oil & Gas Plc (MOG) announced the safe and successful completion of a production test on the well Civita 1 in the Aglavizza Production Concession, Italy, confirming excellent permeability.

MOG announced Jan. 7 that its wholly owned subsidiary Medoilgas Civita Ltd ("MCL") was awarded the Aglavizza Production Concession and that the Company planned to undertake a production test of Civita 1 in January 2013. The step-rate production test and build up analysis was successfully completed Jan. 30 and has confirmed the production potential of Civita 1.

A three-stage step rate test was conducted with the following results:

Stage 1 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 1/4" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after three minutes at a rate of 50,300 scm/day (1,776,345 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 3.5 percent of static well head pressure.Stage 2 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 3/16" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after five minutes at a rate of 27,700 scm/day (978,226 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 1.6 percent of static well head pressure.Stage 3 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 1/8" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after thirty minutes at a rate of 12,200 scm/day (430,843 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 0.4 percent of static well head pressure.

Initial static reservoir pressure was restored within a few seconds after shutting in the well at the end of the production tests.

The results of the production test confirm excellent permeability and no near-well bore formation damage. MOG estimates that the Aglavizza field can be profitably developed, with first gas due in early 2015.

Dr. Bill Higgs, Chief Executive of Mediterranean Oil and Gas, commented:

"We are pleased to have successfully completed the production test at Civita 1 and the results confirm the economic potential of this asset. The team is now working towards finalizing the development plan for Algavizza ahead of an investment decision in late 2013."

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

MOG Confirms 'Excellent Permeability' at Italy Well

Mediterranean Oil & Gas Plc (MOG) announced the safe and successful completion of a production test on the well Civita 1 in the Aglavizza Production Concession, Italy, confirming excellent permeability.

MOG announced Jan. 7 that its wholly owned subsidiary Medoilgas Civita Ltd ("MCL") was awarded the Aglavizza Production Concession and that the Company planned to undertake a production test of Civita 1 in January 2013. The step-rate production test and build up analysis was successfully completed Jan. 30 and has confirmed the production potential of Civita 1.

A three-stage step rate test was conducted with the following results:

Stage 1 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 1/4" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after three minutes at a rate of 50,300 scm/day (1,776,345 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 3.5 percent of static well head pressure.Stage 2 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 3/16" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after five minutes at a rate of 27,700 scm/day (978,226 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 1.6 percent of static well head pressure.Stage 3 Conducted 5 hour production flow test at a 1/8" choke setting: Stabilized flow was achieved after thirty minutes at a rate of 12,200 scm/day (430,843 scf/day) with negligible water production.Flowing well head pressure was drawn down by 0.4 percent of static well head pressure.

Initial static reservoir pressure was restored within a few seconds after shutting in the well at the end of the production tests.

The results of the production test confirm excellent permeability and no near-well bore formation damage. MOG estimates that the Aglavizza field can be profitably developed, with first gas due in early 2015.

Dr. Bill Higgs, Chief Executive of Mediterranean Oil and Gas, commented:

"We are pleased to have successfully completed the production test at Civita 1 and the results confirm the economic potential of this asset. The team is now working towards finalizing the development plan for Algavizza ahead of an investment decision in late 2013."

Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.

View the original article here

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Tweet Posted on Dec 20, 2012 A still from 'Amour'

By Richard Schickel

If you intend to see “Amour,” and you should, then you should do so before reading this review. Certain dramatic details are revealed below in order to explore the film’s deeper meaning.

As Michael Haneke’s “Amour” opens, Georges and Anne (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, both superb) are French music teachers in their 80s who return happily from a concert to their loving lives. The next morning, however, she suffers a stroke and is hospitalized. When she comes home, she makes him promise never again to place her under institutional care. He begins nursing her at home—and makes a patient, uncomplaining job of it, as her decline proceeds apace.

That’s all that happens in this quite beautiful film, which is essentially a compilation of minor events. People (notably Isabelle Huppert, playing their daughter) drop in for visits, though eventually Anne refuses to see them as her appearance fades. There are incidents, benign and not so benign, with the nurses Georges hires to spell him, but mostly the movie consists of him feeding her, bathing her, doing her hair. You would not think this amounts to much—and maybe it doesn’t—but such is the intimate power of Haneke’s camera that these interactions exert a sort of hypnotic force on the film. Somehow, you are never tempted toward impatience with “Amour.” And it is a very tender movie.

Until, all of a sudden, it is not. At a certain point, when Anne’s decline has reached a level of near total incomprehension, Georges grabs a pillow and suffocates her. There is no preparation for this act of violence, no foreshadowing. It simply comes out of nowhere. And we don’t know whether it is an act of love or an act of rage. Stunned at first, we come to realize that it was inevitable, that the whole film was preparing us for this event.

This is the reason for the spoiler alert above. You cannot talk intelligibly about “Amour” without reference to the event. It is, by no means, the climax of the film, though it is obviously its dramatic high point. Georges stays on in the apartment, with Anne laid out prettily in her bed, while he awaits discovery. There are a couple of amusing incidents involving an intrusive pigeon (of all things) and then, improbably yet persuasively, the film veers toward a happy ending. Suddenly Anne is restored to health and vigor. This is fantasy, of course, but there she is, bustling about, preparing to go out for a walk with Georges, reminding him to take his coat.

I think the message of the film, if it may be said to have one, is that love is sometimes—probably rarely—eternal. If that’s true, “Amour” does not state it with particular good cheer. It is an objectively observant film, which is greatly to its credit. And it is an impeccable film. That is to say, it never raises its voice, never grows hysterical no matter how increasingly dire the circumstances the couple confronts become. What it’s saying, I think, is that our inevitable, inescapable final crisis is life’s endgame, the business of conducting someone we love to the end of life (in the process of which we must inevitably confront our own mortality). What is singular about “Amour”—pretty much unique in the annals of cinema in my experience—is that it does so with such calmness. There is no question in my mind that when they leave their apartment (a very handsome, indeed enviable, place) for the last time, they are crossing over into eternity, where possibly their love will love on—eternally. I don’t happen to think that’s a possibility, curse my rationalism. But, for the moment, it is a pretty thing to think. And this limpid, almost perfectly executed, film, if it does not save a perfectly wretched movie year, at least stirs some faint hope. Simple is good and excellence is, albeit rarely, attainable.

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