Harvest Natural Resources Announces Another Oil Discovery In The Pre-Salt Offshore Gabon

HOUSTON, Feb. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Harvest Natural Resources, Inc. (NYSE: HNR) today announced an update to its drilling operations in the Dussafu Tortue Marin-1 (DTM-1) well drilled in the Dussafu Marin PSC, offshore Gabon, West Africa.  Harvest operates the Dussafu PSC, holding a 66.667% interest.

The DTM-1 well was initially drilled in 380 feet of water to a vertical depth of 11,260 feet.  On January 4, 2013, Harvest announced an oil discovery in the pre-salt Gamba and Dentale reservoirs with plans to drill a sidetrack to appraise the extent of the Dentale oil discovery.

The Tortue oil discovery has been appraised by drilling a sidetrack (DTM-1ST1) to the southwest to test the lateral extent and structural elevation of both the Gamba and Dentale reservoirs.  The sidetrack was drilled to a Total Depth (TD) in the Dentale of 11,385 feet, 10,790 feet True Vertical Depth Subsea (TVDSS), approximately 1,800 feet from the original wellbore and found 65 feet of oil pay in the primary Dentale reservoir with better reservoir character and an apparent similar fluid level to that encountered in the vertical well, DTM-1.  In addition, several other stacked sands with oil shows were encountered; however, due to a stuck downhole tool, logging operations in the sidetrack were terminated early before pressure data could be collected to confirm connectivity.

The well will be suspended pending future appraisal and development activities and the rig will be released and demobilized.

Reservoir and conceptual engineering studies will start with the aim of evaluating the commerciality of the discovered oil in the Gamba and Dentale reservoirs at Tortue, as well as Harvest's previous Ruche oil discovery and the nearby Walt Whitman and Moubenga oil discoveries to determine the optimum development options for the block.

The addition of the Tortue oil discovery extends the proven fairway for stacked pre-salt reservoirs and has demonstrated the exploration potential for the outboard part of the Dussafu license.

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