The Kazakhstan Antimonopoly Agency has given Condor Petroleum Inc. approval to sale the company’s 66% interest in the Marsel territory for US $88 million, a news release said.

All conditions for completion have now been satisfied, and the transaction is expected to close by the end of January 2014.

The company plans to use a portion of the Marsel transaction proceeds for exploration, appraisal, and development activities at the Zharkamys West 1 Territory during 2014.

Expected activities include:

• Drilling three development wells and the construction of production facilities at Shoba;
• Drilling three shallow exploration wells, each less than 2,000 m (6,562 ft) in depth and targeting a total of 20 MMbbl of prospective resources;
• Drilling a deeper primary basin well to a depth of 4,600 m (15,092 ft) and targeting 50 MMboe Prospective Resources; and
• Continued appraisal of the KN-E discovery.

The expected cost of these activities is $34 million.