White Nile plans to drill two wells in South Sudan

Dec 20, 2006 (LONDON) — The English oil producer White Nile Ltd said it plans to drill a minimum of two wells in 2007 in Southern Sudan with the first well targeted in the first quarter as it reported a widening of full year pretax loss.

The company said the full year pretax loss widened to 1.42 mln stg compared with 394,039 stg year ago.

White Nile said it is well positioned to achieve its objectives and generate further value for its shareholders with exciting early results from Block Ba in Southern Sudan.

White Nile chairman, the former England cricketer Phil Edmonds, who owns a 4.6 per cent stake along with co-founder Andrew Groves, said stability has increased in the region following the signing of a peace agreement between the north and south at the beginning of last year.

The business partners managed to raise £12m to finance White Nile’s drilling programme this month despite the dispute with Total, which looked for oil in Sudan in the early 1980s but pulled out in 1985 after the outbreak of civil war.

“Early results from Block Ba are very exciting and with further development I believe that we can significantly de-risk the project and therefore increase shareholder value,” Edmonds said. The company’s shares increased 3 per cent or 3p to 116p, valuing White Nile at £376m.

(AFX/Independent)