Poland's Petrolinvest targets 1000 barrels per day production from start of 2008

WARSAW (Thomson Financial) - Polish oil exploration venture Petrolinvest hopes to produce at least 1,000 barrels of oil per day from the start of 2008 after striking oil in its Kazakhstan test sites, the company said today.

'Today's historic event does not bring us close to break even,' said company chief executive Pawel Gricuk.

'We still face very serious investment, but if our estimates of 200-250 barrels per day from each of five Kazakh sites are correct, at the beginning of 2008 our production should be 1000-1250 barrels per day.'

To date Petrolinvest, launched on the Warsaw stock exchange in July, has ploughed 85 mln usd into investment in the Kazakh sites to which it has bought rights. Gricuk said they would invest another 70 mln by the end of the year.

'We plan to sell our oil to local traders in Kazakhstan at 35 usd per barrel, which includes a 30 pct net profit margin,' he added.

Source: By Patrick Graham, forbes.com