France is one of the operated producing assets in the Lundin Petroleum portfolio. Proved plus probable reserves are around 26 million barrels. Facilities and infrastructure are in place with excess capacity. Recent activities in horizontal well development and waterflood projects have proven successful in maintaining/increasing oil production levels.

Introduction
Lundin Petroleum is operator or partner in 20 production and exploration permits located in the producing Paris and Aquitaine basins. Table 1 summarises the partnerships in each contract.

Paris Basin
Lundin Petroleum is the operator of nine production licences and 6 exploration permits located some 80 kilometres east of Paris. These properties are located in the central part of the Paris basin where Lower Jurassic organic-rich marine shales are presently in the oil generation window.

Proven plus probable reserves net to Lundin Petroleum are nearly 20.9 million barrels of oil. The light crude produced from these fields has sulphur content below 0.5% and is sold on to Total. The largest production asset is the Villeperdue field which produces from middle Jurassic oolitic limestones which have a porosity range between 8-18% and good permeability. Different parts of the field have different degrees of fracturation and field performance and operating costs are continuously optimised using a variety of workover techniques to optimise production from horizontal and vertical producers. Waterflood takes place in the North-East part of the field. Available capacity in the Lundin Petroleum pipeline from Villeperdue to the Grandpuits refinery is also used to generate additional revenue through transportation of third party oil.

The rest of the production comes from several smaller fields, mainly from Upper Triassic Raethian sandstone and Middle Jurassic carbonate. Lundin Petroleum has put a significant effort in optimising these fields and all the Raethian fields are now being waterflooded. This has resulted in substantial increase in production from these small fields. The Grandville field now produces more barrels per day than ever in its history.

Aquitaine Basin
Lundin Petroleum is a 50% partner in the Les Arbousiers (discovered in 1991), Les Pins (1994), Courbey (1996) and Les Tamaris (1998) fields. Vermilion is the operator of these concessions. The Courbey and Les Pins fields extend below the Bay d’Arcachon and are developed via deviated wells drilled from onshore facilities, while Les Arbousiers and Les Tamaris are onshore fields.

The Upper Jurassic Purbeckian sandstone is the main reservoir of the area. These sands have an 8-10% porosity and excellent permeability. Locally the underlying Mano carbonate also produces from fractured dolomites. Regional source rock is the Upper Jurassic Catus member. There is considerable upside potential in these permits.

Proven and probable reserves to Lundin Petroleum (as of January 2008) are 4.9 million barrels of oil.

The South Mimosa structure was drilled in 2004 and was successfully brought onstream during 2005 via temporary facilities. Pressure decline has confirmed connected volumes which has resulted in revised reserves estimates. Several additional near field exploration targets remain within the applied production licence area.

Lundin Petroleum and Vermillion were awarded the Carret exploration licence in 2007.