Rhein Petroleum holds a 100% interest in the Schwarzbach Production License, covering 8.8 sq km (2,184 acres) in the Schwarzbach licence which sits in the German state of Hessen.

This field was discovered by Rhein Petroleum in 2015 when the Schwarzbach-1 well (“SCHB-1”) discovered oil in the Oligocene Pechelbronner-Schichten (“PBS”) sandstones in a N-S trending structural high at around 1700m depth. 

The field comprises four juxtaposed structural compartments: Kuehkopf, Stockstadt Mitte, Schwarzbach Main and Schwarzbach South. The depleted Stockstadt Main field lies immediately to the SE, having produced around 7.6 MMstb from the same PBS reservoir sands. Additional reservoirs exist in the shallower Meletta (“ME”) reservoir sands.

A number of pre-1970s wells have produced oil from the PBS reservoirs in the westernmost Kuehkopf Block which was discovered and developed on 2D seismic data. Rhein Petroleum has evaluated 3D seismic over the Erfelden complex, which radically improved the subsurface image and led to Schwarzbach Main discovery in the SCHB-1 well, which has been in production since 2015 from the side-track SCHB-1a.

The Stockstadt-Mitte-1 (SKM-1) well, drilled in 1985, proved the presence of oil in the Stockstadt Mitte block which will be the focus of the Erfelden development which has CPR-validated remaining 2P reserves of 3.78 mmbbls, with development drilling scheduled in 2023 and 2024. The intention is that during this development the untested Schwarzbach South structural compartment will be appraised targeting additional 2C contingent resources 2.42 mmbbls.