Early stage explorer Longreach Oil & Gas (CVE:LOI) is now poised to drill into the first prospective zone at the Kamar-1 well in Morocco, it said.
Kamar-1 is the firm's second exploration well at the onshore Sidi Moktar licence and it was spudded late last month.
The firm says it is capitalising on the lessons learnt from drilling the first well at the licence - the Koba-1 - where technical difficulties were encountered.
Kamar is being drilled to a depth of 3,500 metres and is about to hit the targeted Lower Liassic formation and the firm has set an intermediate casing at around 1,960 metres.
"Methodically exploring Kechoula step-by-step, the Kamar-1 drilling and evaluation plan is to drill into the Lower Liassic, but to stop short of intersecting the analogous depth where Koba-1 encountered what, based upon technical data, the Longreach team believes is a series of fractures and the source of an influx of abnormally high-pressure water that interrupted the collection of a full suite of reservoir measurements in the company's first well," said executive chairman Dennis Sharp.
"Each well is a technical building block to value creation.
"While there is always anticipation of enormous success early in any exploration programme, extracting full value is a longer game that rewards patience and learning from each well, log, evaluation and interpretation," he added.
Longreach has a 50% operated interest in Sidi Moktar licence covering 2,683 square kilometres and is working closely with ONHYM as a committed long-term partner to unlock the potential of the region.