News

September 03, 2009

Vast Exploration Hopes To Emulate Its Kurdistan Neighbour Heritage Oil As It Prepares For High Impact Drilling In 2010

These are exciting times for investors in Calgary’s Vast Exploration. The stock price of the TSX Venture-listed E&P, which is due to appear at oilbarrel.com’s September 15 conference in London, has increased three-fold this year as anticipation mounts ahead of first drilling on its prime asset, the Qara Dagh block in Kurdistan.

Two years ago Vast was a small time producer in Canada, where its properties in the Boyer and Barrhead areas of northern and central Alberta produced a grand total of 32 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The E&P minnow had ambitions to scale up its operations and saw a chance to seek growth opportunities far beyond the Calgary oil patch: in under-explored Kurdistan in northern Iraq, to be exact.

The company signed the PSC for the 846 sq km Qara Dagh block in May 2008,...