Stockwatch Energy Summary today In happier news, Valeura Energy Inc. (VLE) jumped 52 cents to $3.29 on 1.12 million shares, after providing an update on its Inanli-1 appraisal well in Turkey. This is the first appraisal well that Valeura and its joint venturer, Statoil's Equinor, have drilled at their BCGA (basin-centred gas accumulation) play. They are following up on the Yamalik-1 discovery well, which was drilled last year and tested both gas and condensate. The Inanli-1 appraisal was spudded on Oct. 8 of this year. Drilling is not finished yet, but so far, Inanli-1 has found nicely overpressured gas shows (some gas even made it into the wellbore and had to be safely brought to surface and flared) and lots of lovely fracture swarms (naturally fractured rock), even more than were found in Yamalik-1. All of this bodes well for eventual productivity. Investors will have to wait a while for test results, however, because Valeura says it wants to conduct more extensive research on the well. It had previously said it planned to finish drilling operations at Inanli-1 in December and start fracking and testing in the first quarter. Now it says operations will not be finished until late January, and fracking and testing will not begin until the end of the first quarter.
All in all, this is a pleasant bit of news for Valeura, which is still trying to win investors back after last month's disappointing update about the above-mentioned discovery well, Yamalik-1. On Nov. 13, the stock plunged to $2.63 from $4.32 after Valeura announced that the Yamalik-1 well, in addition to gas and condensate, was also flowing water, something investors had not expected and did not like. President and CEO Sean Guest told them not to worry. He said the water might have perfectly innocent origins (it could be leftover load water from the fracking process), and even if the water is coming from underground, that would not be a death knell for the project; it would simply mean that Valeura would have to figure out where exactly the water is coming from and how to manage it. Investors were not soothed at the time, but today's update from Inanli-1 has certainly made them feel better. Mr. Guest did not provide any word on the water issues at Yamalik-1 in today's update. He previously said, very vaguely, that it will take "a little while" to figure everything out.