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Despite the current low oil price, Petroci hopes to sign up operators by year-end for two of its six new ultra-deep blocks. The new blocks were unveiled at a roadshow in Houston on 14 October. A Petroci official told African Energy the state oil company had been delighted by the response and was finalising talks with two potential partners. Petroleum Geo-Services has acquired 6,500km of multi-client 2D seismic data in support of the round, providing a 7km by 14km grid of the area, and including well tie lines into key wells in the shallower water to the north.

International law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP is opening an affiliated office in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, operating under the name Orrick RCI. Orrick RCI will be staffed full time by Karamoko Fadiga and Sydney Domoraud-Operi, working with the firm’s 50-lawyer Africa practice, headed by Pascal Agboyibor. This team recently added two new project finance partners: Cameroon-born Jean-Jacques Essombè, who joined from Heenan Blaikie in Paris, and Colin Graham, who joined from Hogan Lovells in London. Orrick is legal adviser to Democratic Republic of Congo for the Inga development .

Canadian Natural Resources (CNR) has given Subsea 7 a contract for the installation of spools and umbilicals for its Baobab field phase III development. The main offshore installation phase is expected to be carried out by Subsea 7’s Seven Pacific vessel in Q2 2015. In Q4 2013, CNR contracted Transocean’s Cajun Express drilling rig for a six-well drilling programme at the Baobab field. The rig, presently on contract to Cairn Energy offshore Senegal, is contracted from November 2014 to November 2015 at a day rate of $495,000 for a light crude oil drilling programme targeted to add 11,000 boe/d of net production when complete.

Operator Vioco Petroleum is aiming for final investment decision by year-end on the Gazelle gas field development on Block CI-202. The company submitted a revised field development plan to the government in July 2014, based on supplying gas to a new power plant to be built next to the onshore gas processing facilities. Approval will lead to the granting of an exclusive exploitation area (EEA) over the Gazelle field, allowing for 25 years of exploitation. Vioco is 35% owned by Azonto Petroleum, the former Rialto Energy, and 65% by Vitol, which acquired 65% of the shares in Rialto subsidiary Rialto (Côte d’Ivoire) last year in exchange for providing $50m of loan capital for the Block CI-202 work programme.

Japan’s Mitsubishi has agreed to acquire a 20% stake from Anadarko Petroleum in the Tullow Oil-operated Block CI-103. The block, which lies about 50km offshore in 2,000 metres of water, contains Tullow’s Autruche light oil discovery found by the Paon 1X well in 2012. Since then, the Calao 1X exploration well and Paon 2A appraisal well have both proved unsuccessful, but the Paon-3A well is planned for H2 2014, at a site 3.7 miles south of and down dip to Paon-1X. The well will target the Cretaceous fan system in which the discovery well encountered 100 feet of net oil pay.

Côte d’Ivoire has priced a $750m ten-year bond at a final yield of 5.625%, according to a government statement. Government debt is rated B1 (positive outlook) by Moody’s and B (positive outlook) by Fitch. The country missed coupon payments on its outstanding 2032 Eurobond in 2010–11 as it emerged from political and economic crisis, and had to restructure its external and domestic debt in 2012. But a growing number of African countries are now seeking to tap debt markets as borrowing costs have fallen to record lows.

Ministers from Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea and Ghana signed a protocol of agreement on 16 May creating a framework under which all three countries will work together to explore the possibility of establishing a jointly owned regional gas company. ‘All three countries are cognisant of the benefits that would be derived from the regional gas company, including new revenue streams from the sale of hitherto unexploited natural gas, creation of new jobs, and facilitating access to gas by power plants, industries and homes that need them as a source of energy or feedstock,” Equatorial Guinea’s Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy said in a statement.

Efforts to improve co-ordination between Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire are gaining momentum, with plans for the Mano River Union (MRU) to hold a senior-level meeting to promote electricity interconnection, probably in Abidjan in June, MRU secretary-general Saran Daraba Kaba told African Energy. There is growing support for development of interconnections between the four states as part of the West African Power Pool (WAPP), Guinean finance minister Mohamed Diaré told a 4 April Belgium-Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce meeting in Brussels.

Total has announced a discovery offshore western Côte d’Ivoire with the Saphir-1XB well on Block CI-514, but said its 40 metres of net oil pay were distributed over a series of 350 metres of reservoirs. “Drilled in an abrupt margin play, this first well is the first discovery in the San Pedro Basin, a frontier exploration area in Ivory Coast,” said senior vice-president, exploration, Marc Blaizot. “Having confirmed the presence of a petroleum system containing light oil, we will next evaluate this very promising find and focus on its extension to the north and east.”

African Petroleum Corporation has applied for a listing on Oslo’s junior Axess market, following the appointment of new management in recent months. Controversial former chairman Frank Timis stepped down in October. “Due to historical events related to other listed companies where he has been involved, Mr Timis will not be employed by the company nor hold board positions nor play any governance role going forward,” the company said. Before founding African Petroleum, Timis was chief executive of Regal Petroleum, whose directors were fined £600,000 in 2009, after a Financial Services Authority investigation, for misleading investors on the viability of an oil well in the Aegean Sea in 2003. African Petroleum and its sister company International Petroleum listed on Australia’s National Stock Exchange in 2010 after the main Australian Stock Exchange declined to have Timis involved.

Lukoil Overseas has completed drilling its first offshore exploration well, Capitaine East-1x, on Block CI-101. Lukoil said the well had penetrated through 140 metres of sandstone from a Turonian formation. The company said the well confirmed the presence of hydrocarbons, indicating the oil potential of the area, but did not specify whether it was a discovery. The well was drilled to a target depth of more than 5,200 metres in water depths of more than 2,000 metres, using Ocean Rig’s Eirik Raude semisubmersible drilling rig.

Oslo-based Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) is acquiring 2,300km2 of multi-client 3D GeoStreamer marine seismic data over open blocks CI-506 and CI-507 in deep water off the west coast. The data are being acquired with local partner Laguna and in co-operation with state oil company Petroci. In co-operation with the block operators, PGS and Laguna also recently completed the acquisition of 1,500km2 of multi-client 3D GeoStreamer data over blocks CI-12 and CI-501. The data cover both shallow and deep-water acreage. “Exploration offshore Côte d’Ivoire has historically focused in the East, where fields such as Lion, Panthere and Baobab have proven a working petroleum system.

The partners on Block CI-27 have pre-empted Gasol’s planned purchase of Energie de Côte d’Ivoire and its 12% stake in the block (AE 269/15). The AIM-listed company said the seller, GDF Suez E&P International, had informed it that the existing partners had exercised their pre-emption rights and the acquisition could not proceed. The CI-27 fields produce about 137mcf/d of gas and 1,000 b/d of liquids. The gas is piped to Abidjan for sale to power producers under long-term contracts, and production from CI-27 accounted for more than 65% of Côte d’Ivoire’s gas production in 2012.

Sinohydro has given Alstom a contract to provide electromechanical equipment and technical services to the 270MW Soubré hydropower project at the Naoua Falls on the Sassandra River. Alstom will provide three 90MW Francis turbine generator sets, one 5MW Bulb turbine generator set and related equipment. The scope of the contract covers design and manufacturing of the equipment, and supervision of installation, commissioning and testing, as well as site services. The equipment will be manufactured at Alstom’s industrial site in Tianjin, China.

Russia’s Lukoil Overseas has drilled a successful appraisal well on the Indépendance discovery on Block CI-401 in the Tano Basin. The well was drilled to a total depth of more than 4,500 metres in 1,600 metre water depths using Ocean Rig’s Eirik Raude semisubmersible rig. Lukoil said the well had proven oil presence in the Turonian sands of the oil and gas condensate field of the Indépendance structure discovered in December 2011. It said data from the well were being processed to evaluate the potential resource base and inform a decision on further field appraisal.