UK-based Tower Resources said drilling of a new well at the Thali block in Cameroon had been delayed until July.
In a stock exchange announcement, the company said that it had received additional data that indicated that further site preparation work would be required before a rig was moved to site.
"Therefore the company has agreed with Vantage to move the planned mobilisation of the Topaz Driller to July 2019 instead of late May 2019, in order to allow sufficient time for the additional site preparation work to be completed," Tower Resource said.
However, this is still within the original date range contemplated by the rig contract, and well within the license extension period agreed last year, it added.
Tower is in the final stages of planning the NJOM3 well, which will be drilled to a total depth of 1,100 metres intersecting at least three reservoir zones already identified by the NJOM1B and NJOM2 discovery wells drilled on the Njonji structure by the previous operator Total.
The well is designed to confirm the greater reservoir thicknesses observed on the reprocessed 3D seismic in the up-dip area of the structure, and also evaluate additional reservoirs that were not present in the areas where Total's wells are located.
The NJOM3 well is designed to supplement Total's well data with a suite of measurement and logging tools and drill stem test (DST) flows to surface. The Company's intention is then to suspend the well with a view to subsequent completion as one of four initial production wells on the structure, as envisaged in the Reserve Report prepared by Oilfield International Limited (OIL) on 30 September 2018.
This first phase of development envisaged by the Reserve Report, aiming to exploit the 2C contingent resources (Pmean 18 million barrels oil, gross) already identified in the structure, aims to provide significant production to Tower in 2020.