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Issue 134 - 07 March 2008

Afren takes onshore gas blocks

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Afren plc has signed production-sharing contracts for OPLs 917 and 907 in the Anambra Basin as part of its strategy to commercialise stranded gas assets.

Gabon
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London-based Soco International has begun a 2D marine seismic survey over Lake Edward on Block V in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Acquisition began on 26 April, using an environmentally sensitive technique of placing seismic recorders on the lake bed. The lake forms part of Block V, which also includes an area of the Virunga National Park, whose director Emmanuel de Mérode was shot and injured on 15 April after delivering a report on alleged violations of park rules by Soco to the prosecutor’s office in Goma.

DR Congo
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Mogadishu-based Transitional Federal Government (TFG) prime minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke has said that all contracts, including energy contracts, signed by the semi-autonomous Republic of Puntland,

Somalia
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Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari has surprised many investors by declining to sign into law the embattled Petroleum Industry Governance Bill. Claiming the bill would divert scarce financial resources from state coffers, Buhari in late August struck a potentially lethal blow to petroleum reform. He may also have brought an anticlimactic end to almost two decades of tortuous legislative to and fro over petroleum reform, marked by extensive lobbying and concern from Shell, Eni, ExxonMobil, Total and other international partners.

Nigeria
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Hyperdynamics lacks the cash to fund its well obligation and has yet to close a farm-out deal with South Atlantic Petroleum (SAPetro). President and chief executive Ray Leonard told a conference call with investors on 3 March that the company was ready to drill the deep-water Fatala well but lacked the necessary funds. With licence expiry looming in September, “the cash position has become critical” and the company is arranging bridge financing, he said.

Guinea
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IOCs are attracted to the Maghreb and Egypt, but each market poses its own problems, writes John Hamilton. While gas developments and exploration are advancing in Tunisia, and Morocco remains investor-friendly but seems to lack the resources to be more than a marginal play, international oil companies are facing a tougher time in the Maghreb than many expected when they entered promising exploration and production plays in Algeria and Libya.

Egypt | Libya | Algeria | Morocco | Tunisia
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Oando Energy Resources (OER) has finally completed its acquisition of ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian upstream oil and gas business for $1.5bn plus a deferred consideration of $33m, in a deal that will increase Oando’s production tenfold. The onshore assets consist of Phillips Oil Company Nigeria Limited, which holds a 20% non-operating interest in oil mining leases (OMLs) 60, 61, 62 and 63, as well as related infrastructure and facilities in the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) joint venture with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation with a 60% interest, and NAOC (20% and operator).

Nigeria
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Madagascar Oil has declared its Tsimiroro discovery on Block 3104 commercial and plans to trial sales of its heavy crude to supply local power plants (AE 275/13). The London-listed company has 180 days from 8 May to submit a field development plan to state resource company Office des Mines Nationales et des Industries Stratégiques (Omnis) for approval. A management committee with members from Madagascar Oil and Omnis will then decide whether the discovery could be commercially exploitable, and Omnis will apply for a presidential decree for a mining title to cover an initial 25-year exploitation period.

Madagascar
Issue 189 - 26 June 2010

Doris wins Lucapa pre-FEED

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Houston-based Doris has won the pre-front-end engineering and design contract for the Chevron-operated Lucapa field development in offshore Block 14

Angola
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Schlumberger has pulled out of Ophir Energy’s Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas project after failing to agree terms, but Ophir says it is in talks with other potential partners and expects a final investment decision (FID) in Q4 this year.Ophir announced a non-binding heads of terms agreement with Schlumberger in January for upstream participation. Ophir said Schlumberger had completed technical due diligence but the companies had been unable to finalise the transaction.

Equatorial Guinea
Issue 269 - 16 January 2014

Tanzania: Ophir hits dry well in Block 7

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London Stock Exchange-listed Ophir Energy has announced that its high-impact Mlinzi Mbali-1 well in offshore Block 7 failed to find hydrocarbons. The Deepsea Metro I drillship is now drilling the Sunbird well on Kenyan Block 10A for BG Group. It will then return to Tanzania, where wells are planned on Block 1 and on the Ophir-operated East Pande Block during H1 2014. Broker Investec said that, while Mlinzi was “a disappointment, the well was a high-risk prospect and only the first well in a 2014 programme that now includes up to ten wells, seven of which represent play openers”.

Tanzania
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Commentators were stunned by Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23) leader General Bosco Ntaganda’s decision to leave his haunts in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, presenting himself on 18 March at the US embassy in Kigali, where he asked to be transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. For Ntaganda, apparently, the prospect of facing trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity is preferable to continuing his conflict with President Joseph Kabila Kabange’s administration in Kinshasa or facing the wrath of his former Rwandan ally President Paul Kagame. The warlord’s move prompted speculation that an elusive peace deal between the DRC government and M23 might be forthcoming. However, peace with M23 provides no guarantee that DRC’s oil sector can quickly fulfil its promise.

Congo Brazzaville
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Eni announced on 9 May that it had completed the ramp-up of the Ochigufu field on Block 15/06 of Angola’s deep offshore, reaching the production plateau of 24,000 b/d. The field started up on 16 March and allows Eni’s operated production from block 15/06 to stabilise above 150,000 b/d, in line with a goal of adding 54,000 b/d to the block’s production by 2019.

Angola
Issue 287 - 27 October 2014

Senegal: Cairn discovery

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Cairn Energy has announced an oil discovery with the FAN-1 well on the Sangomar Deep block. The well was drilled to 4,927 metres in 1,427 metres water depth and found 29 metres of oil bearing reservoir (AE 284/18). Once operations are completed on the FAN-1 well, the rig will move to complete the second well, SNE-1 where the top hole has been drilled pending re-entry. The FAN-1 well was drilled using the semi-submersible drilling unit Cajun Express. It is the third well in Cairn’s North West Africa programme and first in Senegal.

Senegal
Free

The semisubmersible Transocean Marianas has been contracted by PetroSA for four wells starting in May. The rig, which can drill at depths of up to 9,100 metres, will be working at a day rate of $370,000 until March 2015, Transocean said in its latest fleet status report. The rig has been idle in Cape Town harbour since drilling three non-commercial wells offshore Namibia for Brazil’s HRT last year.

South Africa