Offshore staff

WEST PERTH, Australia – Rialto Energy and partner Petroci have submitted a development plan for the Gazelle field in block CI-202 off Côte d’Ivoire to the Hydrocarbon Directorate (DGI) in Abidjan.

Approval is expected by the end of the calendar year. This will likely include a Memorandum of Agreement for a gas sales accord.

Rialto has been working on the project with its technical partner, Doris Engineering, and expects FEED studies for the Gazelle development to start on approval of the development plan.

Transocean’s GSF Monitor rig should finish its current drilling program off Nigeria in February and then be available for drilling on CI-202 in late March.

Long-lead items for the proposed three wells have been procured and are being delivered to Rialto’s shore base in Abidjan. Rialto’s drilling team will arrive early in 2012 to oversee the run up to the start of drilling. The company’s office in Côte d’Ivoire is fully operational, and will be headed by Deputy General Manager Augustin Brou Amakou, who joins from the DGH.

Currently Rialto’s technical team are finalizing with Petroci detailed proposals for the three wells.

RPS Energy Services’ recent Competent Persons Report for CI-202 upgraded the total mean contingent liquids and gas resource to 50 MMbbl and 396 bcf, and the total mean prospective liquids and gas resource to 511 MMbbl and 1,785 bcf.

11/29/2011