Results of an appraisal well on oil explorer EnCore Oil’s Tudor Rose prospect will not be available ahead of an important shareholders’ meeting.
EnCore shareholders are due to vote on Monday on the planned £221million takeover by Premier Oil.
The deal, announced in early October before the Tudor Rose well was spudded on November 16, would see Premier become operator of the Catcher field in the North Sea with a 50% stake and take on EnCore’s 16.6% interest in the Cladhan prospect, which could contain in excess of 300million barrels of oil.
Drilling on Tudor Rose had been due to take 20 days, which would have meant results of planned viscosity and gravity tests on the oil were available ahead of the shareholder vote.
However, drilling on the 14/30a-5 well on Tudor Rose, in the central North Sea, have been delayed.
“As previously announced, this well was expected to take 20 days,” EnCore said.
“However, to date, some 13 days have been lost due to bad weather and some minor operational delays.”
It said it would make a further announcement once the well has been completed.
Analysts at Evolution Securities said once drilling resumes the well should take about two weeks to complete.
Owners of the licence are EnCore Oil (40%), Endeavour Energy (20%), EnQuest (20%) and Nautical Petroleum (20%).
Premier has offered 70p per EnCore share.