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The newly merged PetroNor E&P has agreed to buy Panoro Energy’s 12.19% equity stake in OML 113 in the Keta Basin offshore western Nigeria, which contains the Aje oil and gas field. Cyprus-registered PetroNor, which completed a merger with African Petroleum in August, plans to take a lead role in progressing the long-mooted development of the field’s gas reserves, eliminating flaring and supplying gas to replace diesel generation in Lagos.

Total E&P Angola has given a consortium of SBM Offshore and APL, part of Norway’s BW Offshore, a letter of award for the engineering, procurement, supply, construction and Installation of the oil loading system for the Pazflor project on Block 17.

South Korea’s SK Innovation has farmed into Kosmos Energy’s Foum Assaka contract area in the Agadir Basin, buying a 12.5% stake from Fastnet Oil & Gas ahead of drilling next year. The deal includes a cost carry for a first exploration well on the Eagle prospect and an appraisal well or second exploration well, plus reimbursement of past costs. A well on the Eagle prospect is expected to spud in late Q1 2014. On completion, the equity split for the block will be Kosmos 39.9% and operator, BP 35.1%, Fastnet’s Pathfinder Hydrocarbon ventures subsidiary and SK 12.5% each, and the state Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines 25% carried interest.

The Ministry of Energy and Mines is already quietly downgrading expectations for the outcome of Agence Nationale pour la Valorisation des Ressources en Hydrocarbures (Alnaft)’s third licensing round (AE 193/10).

The Tunisian government has embarked on a second attempt to persuade the nation of the potential benefits of shale gas exploration after its first attempt encountered popular opposition. On 27 June, minister of industry Mehdi Jomaâ launched a “national debate on energy” at which both caretaker President Moncef Marzouki and Prime Minister Ali Larayedh made speeches. Officials canvassed by African Energy before the launch said that the technical decision to develop shale resources had already been taken in the ministry and at state oil company Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap). The task is now to muster the necessary political and popular backing.

Soma Oil & Gas executive director for Africa Hassan Khaire has been named as prime minister in the government of new Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. Soma said Khaire had resigned from the board and relinquished all his shares in the company. Khaire, 46, had worked with Soma since the company was founded in 2013, and before that as director for the Norwegian Refugee Council for Somalia and East Africa, having come to Norway in the late 1980s as a refugee.

It all seems like business as usual. Australian Securities Exchange and Alternative Investment Market-listed Range Resources has announced a new financial agreement with its joint venture partner Canada-based Africa Oil Corporation (AOC), for a second exploration well due to be spudded by September. This will be included as part of AOC’s exploration commitments,which oblige it to spend $22.5m in Dharoor and Nugaal before Range reverts to a contributing basis. A Range company report says AOC has satisfied its commitments with regard to Dharoor, but still has around $15m to pay on Nugaal.

Operator Repsol has spudded the first exploration well in onshore Block Ta10 in the Taoudeni Basin. Partner RWE Dea said the Ouguiya-1 well was being drilled by the Saipem 5893 drilling rig. Its primary targets are Precambrian formations, and the well is scheduled to be completed in Q2 2014. “We are very pleased that, together with our partner, we have commenced this well, which is both challenging from an engineering point as well as being of great interest in geological terms,” said RWE senior vice-president exploration Werner Schwarzhans.

Energy services company Wood Group has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ghanaian company Hydra Offshore to explore opportunities to provide subsea engineering services to local operators. The Aberdeen-based company said the collaboration would combine the strengths of Hydra Offshore’s subsea engineering capabilities with the technical experience, capability, technology and technical assurance of Wood Group’s global oil and gas business. Hydra is a wholly Ghanaian-owned company providing offshore and subsea engineering services to the oil and gas industry in Ghana.

Kosmos Energy would like more credit for Ghana’s Jubilee field, writes Our Accra Correspondent. Chairman James Musselman argued that his team of Triton Energy veterans who discovered and developed Equatorial Guinea’s deep-water Ceiba field had the experience that field operator Tullow Oil lacked.

PA Resources and EnQuest have dropped farm-out plans for the Didon field and Zarat permit after the government failed to give its approval. The news comes as PA Resources plans a shareholder meeting on 27 February to decide whether it should go into liquidation. In May 2013, the companies signed agreements for the transfer of 70% in the Didon producing oilfield and the Zarat permit to EnQuest. In July 2014, PA and EnQuest completed the Didon transaction and put the sale proceeds in escrow awaiting a letter of non-objection from the Tunisian authorities.

BARAKA PETROLEUM: Recapitalisation and restructuring; VAALCO: Gabon well plugged, other drilling continues

As the East African hydrocarbons race heats up, Tanzania has found bidders for four onshore blocks, but in opening up a new oil province they will have to consider the needs of local communities and the country’s vital tourist industry, writes Thalia Griffiths.

Tullow Oil has been appraising the Kasamene field on Uganda’s Block 2 ahead of first oil planned in Q4 2011. Tullow exploration manager Robin Sutherland told Global Pacific & Partners’ African Petroleum Forum in London on 13 April that, despite the logistical problems, Tullow was keen to bring a rig in to drill in Lake Albert, and would bring in the parts to build an offshore

Ophir Energy plans to drill a deep-water well in the shared zone between Senegal and Guinea Bissau and has secured a rig from AP Moller-Maersk.