Oil company focused to start drilling offshore Malta

With drilling planned to start towards the end of this year, Mediterranean Oil & Gas has announced financial results which put the company in a position to develop its plans in Malta and Italy during 2013.

"We are well placed to actively pursue exploration and growth opportunities and look forward to the drilling of our first exploration well in the highly prospective Malta Offshore Area 4 with Genel," MOG chief executive Bill Higgs said this morning.

At the end of the year MOG had €8.7mln in cash, and early into the current year it received US$10mln from the Maltese farm-out deal it struck with Tony Hayward's Genel Energy.

In this morning's financial results, for the twelve months to December 31, Higgs said the company had delivered a strong financial, commercial and operational performance.

Gas sales revenues from production in Italy increased significantly to €16.3mln from €4.7mln, and profits rose to €4.1mln from a €1.8mln loss in the year before.

For investors, the focus in the coming year is likely to be on the development of the Ombrina Mare project and the build up to the first exploration well in the Malta venture, which is slated for 'late 2013'.

"We made significant progress in de-risking of Ombrina Mare with the EIA ruling in favour of the company," Higgs said, adding that MOG now awaits the counter-signing of the decree by the Italian Minister of Environment and the Minister of Heritage and Cultural Activities to approve the EIA in order to seek the award of the associated Production Concession, and move forward with the development of the Ombrina Mare oil and gas field.