Poland's Petrolinvest expands Kazakh oil drilling

WARSAW, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Oil exploration firm Petrolinvest (PROL.WA: Quote, Profile, Research), controlled by Polish tycoon Ryszard Krauze, plans to have 10 production wells operating at its first field in Kazakhstan by the end of the year, its chief executive said.

The company holds three concessions in Kazakhstan and announced last month it had struck oil at the Zubantam concession.

CEO Pawel Gricuk told daily Dziennik that three oil wells should be operating there within the next few days.

"By year's end there should be 10 and at the outset we expect to extract some 250 barrels of crude a day from each of them," he said. He did not say how he expected production from the field to change after that.

The Zubantam reserves are estimated at 250 million barrels.

Peterolinvest is now completing drilling in Dautskoye, another Kazakhi oil field.

"If we are successful, we should be able to assess the daily extraction level very quickly," Gricuk added.

Source: uk.reuters.com