Canada’s TransAtlantic Petroleum Records Steady Production Growth In South-Eastern Europe

By Martin Clark

It has been the best part of a year since we last took a peak at Canadian-listed TransAtlantic Petroleum which, at that time, was seeing production numbers on the rise thanks to sustained drilling activity in Turkey, its core territory.

This is still keeping the company busy but the benefits are there for all to see. TransAtlantic’s 2015 year-to-date net production has been approximately 6,295 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), according to its fourth quarter and year-end 2014 results statement issued earlier this month, with most of that output oil.

Revenues climbed 8 per cent in 2014, reaching $140.7 million, up from US$130.8 million the year before, despite a 12 per cent decrease in the average sales price.This was underpinned by record average net sales volumes: 5,969 boepd in the fourth quarter of 2014, compared to 5,033 boepd in the previous quarter, and 4,391 boepd in the final quarter of 2013.

It underlines how far TransAtlantic has come in this comparatively short period.Investors should take heart too that the group remains just as active in the field.During the first quarter of this year, it has already completed three Turkish wells and, at the same time, like so many others, taken steps to reduce costs.

The company completed the Gurgen-3 well, which produced gas at an initial rate of 1.5 MMCFPD, and drilled and logged the Pinar-1 well, revealing approximately 100 feet of potential pay zone in the Bedinan and Hazro formations. This well is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2015.

Work gas also begun on the Ebyat-2 exploration well, which was drilled on the Idil block in south-eastern Turkey late in the fourth quarter of 2014.TransAtlantic also expects to resume drilling the Bahar and Goksu fields, in the same area, during the second quarter.
And reserves growth has shot up too, with total proved reserves increasing 168% per cent to 32.7 MMBOE in the past year.

The acquisition of Stream Oil & Gas, now known as TransAtlantic Albania, helped to boost reserves (with the addition of 13.9 MMBOE of proved developed reserves at December 31, 2014) and also widen the group’s focus, which also includes Bulgaria.

In Albania, there’s a new management team in place in the capital, Tirana, which has begun to integrate well and geological data and plan a workover programme which could begin in the second quarter of 2015. The company is also to resume drilling the Delvina-D34H1 gas well imminently.