Irish oil and gas exploration company Petroceltic has said it hopes to resume drilling in the Kurdistan region of Iraq in October.
The Shireen-1 well on the Dinarta block was spudded in June of this year, but drilling was suspended as a precautionary measure, due to recent developments in the region.
Petroceltic said drilling operations are scheduled to resume in early October if circumstances allow and it is anticipated that completion of drilling on the well will take a further 90 days.
Chief executive Brian O’Cathain said the explorer’s production and development business has delivered “a solid performance” to date in 2014.
“While our exploration wells during this period did not generate commercial discoveries we have high hopes for our continuing exploration drilling programme in Kurdistan,” he added.
Mr O’Cathain said the company successfully raised $100 million via a share placing with new and existing shareholders.
“We are progressing plans to step up to the official list of the London and Irish stock exchanges by the end of the year.”
The explorer reported revenue of $96.3 million for the first half of the year, down from $103.7 million last year.
The loss for the period to 30 June 2014 was $57.4 million, up from $16.1 million in the comparable period in 2013. This is due to the write-off of exploration costs of $64.3 million, as a result of unsuccessful wells in Kurdistan, Romania and Egypt and administrative expenses of $13.7 million.
