OREANDA-NEWS. July 31, 2013. SOCO International’s shares advanced in trading after saying it encountered about 117 metres of net pay section in the H5 fault block of the Te Giac Trang oil field, offshore in the South China Sea.

The company reached 4,226 metres measured depth (MD) at the TGT-10X exploration well, which was drilled into the Oligocene D2 section.

A liner will now be run over the Miocene and Oligocene reservoir horizons after greater formation pressure than predicted required higher than expected mud weights.

Drilling will continue to reach the target total depth of approximately 4,430 metres MD.

“This will be done upon the completion of the current downhole logging operations which will establish the reservoir parameters to assist the design of the flow testing programme for the Miocene and Oligocene horizons,” the company said.

The well is located about 6.0 kilometres south of the H4 Well Head Platform, in the southern part of Block 16-1's TGT Field in the Cuu Long Basin off the southern coast of Vietnam.

SOCO also announced that drilling of the LDKEM-1 well on the Lideka East Marine prospect in the Republic of Congo started on Friday.

The well will test the potential of a post-salt structure of the Sendji Formation in the Lower Congo Basin, offshore Pointe Noire, in the Marine XI license which is updip from the 2009 Lideka Marine-1 well where oil shows were observed.

The well is expected to take up to 35 days to reach the target depth.

In the Republic of Angola, final preparations are underway at the Dinge 20-6 and Dinge 20-7 well locations prior to the commencement of the two well exploration programme.

The first well is expected to be drilled by the end of July. The Dinge 20-6 well will test the Vovo Sands in the pre-salt section onshore Cabinda North in the area of the Dinge discovery.