Highlands Natural Resources provides operations update on East Denver Project

DENVER -- Highlands, the London-listed natural resources company, provides the following update about the six new wells being funded entirely by Highlands' partners at its East Denver Project.

As previously announced, drilling operations at the new wells were completed in mid-July. The pad was subsequently prepared for fracture stimulation operations which started in mid-August, and the fracing operations for the Grizzly well are now fully completed with the Ouray and Buckskin wells now around 60% complete. In the meantime, the operations team is currently building all necessary surface facilities.

Colorado has experienced one of the driest summers in recent history and consequently water supply disruptions are becoming more commonplace for the local services industry. Our operations are not immune to these problems. Accordingly, the well operator has informed Highlands that the fracking schedule has been revised, with more staggering of the operations to compensate for the drought conditions. Alternative water supplies have also been organised to complete the operations.

In addition to requisitioned water supplies, Highlands is moving two E10X modular solar powered water-recycling units to the East Denver location to treat production and flow-back water from operations to make the water reusable. Highlands will charge fees for treating the disposed water and selling the fresh water to the operator.

Whilst securing these units represents a considerable achievement given local competition for water, Highlands now expects the fracing operations to be completed in December with flow-back from the new wells in late December or early January, at which point Highlands will have a 7.5% carried interest in eight producing wells when these six additional wells come online.