Samson has advised that a work over of the Leonard #1-23H well, located in the Williston Basin, North Dakota, has been undertaken using a coiled tubing unit and was aimed at cleaning out any residual frac sand and drilling out the ball seats associated with the multistage frac equipment. This operation had to be curtailed when the unit intersected a considerable sand plug between Stage 3 and Stage 4, which will require a conventional jointed pipe rig to remove. The procedure is a normal operation in the final completion for this type of well. Having removed the residual frac sand from the well bore, a tubing string and pump will be run.

It is expected that this operation will be completed February 27, 2009.

The discovery of a significant sand plug in the horizontal section of the well means that it is likely that the deeper part of the well bore has not been contributing to the observed flow rates, thus management expects that once the casing is cleaned of this sand, the well's performance will be enhanced.

Prior to the commencement of the work over, the well was free flowing at around 300 BOPD. The rate has not been steady because the well is flowing up 7-inch casing rather than an appropriately sized tubing string. The rate, however, is very encouraging and is expected to stabilize when the full completion is run.

Samson is planning to fund 5 Proved Undeveloped locations that are adjacent to this well in which it will have various equities, with a blended average of 34.5%.

Tags: Samson Oil & Gas Limited