North Sea: Silverstone Energy Limited
Silverstone has made considerable progress in building an acreage position, developing an attractive prospect inventory and becoming established as a credible active exploration and production operator with our Southern North Sea (SNS) gas project focus highlighted by the successful commencement of production from the Victoria gasfield in October 2008
We fully intend to build on this by commencing our second commercial gas development of the Vulcan East discovery and continuing with our exploration program with at least two wells focused on our core area in the SNS in 2009.
Our objective is to develop Silverstone as a successful North Sea producer with demonstrated capabilities to profitably generate, develop and exploit exploration and acquisition opportunities available in the basin as it matures. We expect to achieve this through the efforts of a dedicated combination of an expanding Aberdeen based Silverstone staff, fully engaged Exploration and Production professionals seconded from Storm Ventures International Inc., and a talented slate of North Sea focused consultancies that provide both specialized expertise, experience and the expanded personnel we require to be active in a tight market.
In parallel with demonstrating the ability to discover new reserves, developing a prospect inventory capable of supporting growth for a minimum three to five years is the key attribute in defining the SNS as our initial core area. We increased our prospect generation capabilities with key staff additions in Aberdeen and we are beginning to see the positive results with and increasing prospect inventory. We have five blocks (70-100%) on which we have identified seven prospects where Helix RDS has performed an Independent Reserve Assessment with a P50 estimate of the gross GIP exceeding 1tcf.
The technical experience and expertise we are gaining with our initial well operations and first development will help us high grade from this list, refine our cost efficiencies and eventually lower the reserve threshold required to justify even smaller field development. We are continuing to work towards the development of a second project area in the Central North Sea and have added exploration leads in the Outer Moray Firth to our Quad 9 Tertiary oil exposure as a result of a successful 25th Licensing round effort that saw us offered 13 blocks.