Australia-based ADX Energy announced on 31 October 2018 that it reached into an agreement with SDP Services Limited, an independent specialized oilfield service company based in India, for the farm-out of a 50% interest in the d363C.R-.AX exploration permit under application offshore western Sicily. The application, detained by ADX Energyâs wholly-owned subsidiary AuDAx Energy, is covering the Nilde oil field, which the company is planning to redevelop. According to the deal, which is conditional to the official award of the permit, SDP Services will contribute to the work program of the exploration permit for a maximum consideration of EUR 20.82 million (USD 23.6 million) in exchange of a 50% non-operating interest and a 5% net profit royalty interest on any future production from the Nilde field. ADX Energy expects that the enhancement of the financial capability of AuDAx energy brought by this new partner will facilitate the grant of the permit after the Italian regulatory authorities negatively assessed the financial ability of AuDAx Energy to fulfill the commitments related to license.  AuDAX Energy applied for the d363C.R-.AX exploration permit, covering 725 sq km offshore western Sicily, on 29 January 2010. Proposed commitments for the initial six-year period include the reprocessing of legacy seismic and development studies and the drilling of a well within the first four years. The block, sited in water depths ranging from 30 m to 200 m, encompasses the Nilde oil field as well as the Norma 1 and the Naila 1 oil discoveries. The Nilde field was discovered by Agip in 1977 with the Nilde 2 wildcat. The well, drilled to a TD of 2,143 m, tested some 2,500 bo/d of 38.9Â° API oil from a Miocene reservoir (Serravallian Nilde Limestone) at a shallow depth (1,500 m). The field was put on-stream in 1981. The completion of the Nilde 6dir horizontal well in 1986 brought the average production rate of the field to 11,796 bo/d in 1987. However, the field was abandoned in 1989 due to excessive water production and low oil prices. Between 1981 and 1989 the Nilde field produced 20.5 MMbbl of oil. According to an independent assessment by GE Plan and Hot Engineering from 2016, the remaining 2C contingent recoverable resource of the Nilde field could now be estimated at 60 MMbbl of oil. A previous independent assessment, by Senergy (GB) Limited dated 15 February 2016 pointed to contingent resources (2C) of 34 MMbbl of oil (20.2 MMbbl of oil 1C and 54.4 MMbbl of oil 3C) for the Nilde field (28.4 MMbbl) and the two adjacent discoveries Norma (3.9 MMbbl) and Naila (1.7MMbbl).  Upon completion of the deal, interest in the d363C.R-.AX exploration permit will be shared between AuDAX Energy Srl (50% - operator) and SDP Services Ltd (50%).
Italy (Sud-Tellian Atlas) Norma 1