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Operator Noble Energy has made an oil discovery with the Carla South exploration well in Block I. Partner PA Resources said the well had reached a total measured depth of 3,660 metres, encountering ten metres vertical thickness of net oil pay in good quality sandstones at the target level. Following completion of logging operations, the well is being side-tracked to an adjacent target.

Citadel Capital’s upstream oil and gas arm, National Petroleum Company (NPC), has increased production from the Shukheir Bay field, 125km north of Hurghada on the western coast of the Red Sea, by 1,700 b/d

France’s Technip has been awarded a lump-sum contract by Noble Energy to develop the Aseng field, located in Block I offshore Equatorial Guinea, at a water depth of approximately 1,000 metres. Technip, which is listed on Paris’ Euronext market, will carry out engineering, supply, installation and pre-commissioning of the 30km flexible pipe system, including risers, flowlines and jumpers.

Controversial South African businessman Moto Mabanga has failed in his bid to win more money from Ophir Energy for helping the company to secure acreage offshore Tanzania

African Petroleum says it is preparing to launch a formal arbitration process in its dispute with the government over blocks A1 and A4. Government officials say the licences expired in September 2016 and have not been renewed, but African Petroleum says the formal termination procedure has not been followed. In April, the Oslo-listed company said it had agreed heads of terms for an unnamed company to take a 70% stake in the Gambian blocks and its Senegal licence, but in July it said it had allowed the exclusivity agreement to lapse “to provide flexibility in government discussions” over the Gambia blocks, and to enable it to talk to other potential suitors for Senegal.

Fighting has continued to threaten oilfield security in South Sudan’s main oil producing states of Unity and Upper Nile in recent weeks, but production has remained more or less steady at about 165,000 b/d, according to oil industry sources. Government oil sales, meanwhile, have increased by 1m barrels a month. The government closed a tender on 7 May for the sale of 3.8m barrels of Dar Blend crude from Upper Nile. Four contracts were awarded: one of 600,000 barrels and three of 1m barrels. The 600,000-barrel contract was won by Glencore.

Still in expansion mode despite the global downturn, Italy’s Eni has returned to Gabon, acquiring six new exploration licences covering more than 8,000km2 offshore and onshore.

Cairn Energy has submitted a three-year evaluation work plan to the government of Senegal and selected the Ocean Rig Athena drillship for an initial programme of three firm and three optional exploration and appraisal wells, with drilling starting in Q4 2015.Cairn estimates that last year’s SNE-1 and FAN-1 oil discoveries and the currently identified prospects and leads have an estimated mean risked resource base of more than 1bn barrels. The Ocean Rig Athena is drilling the Vali-1 well for ConocoPhillips in Angola’s Kwanza Basin, which spudded in April.

Edinburgh-based Bowleven on 1 June announced the start of drilling on the Zingana exploration well on the onshore Bomono permit, the first of two wells planned for this year. Zingana is located 20km north-west of Douala, and will target a Paleocene-aged three-way dip closed-fault block that was partially penetrated by shallow wells drilled in the 1950s. The well will be drilled to a target depth of around 2,000 metres.

Australia’s Baraka Petroleum has announced that Petronas plans to withdraw from the joint venture exploring blocks Ta-11 and Ta12 in the onshore Taoudeni Basin.

The Ministry of Energy is in talks with ExxonMobil for the Deepwater Cape Three Points (DWCTP) Block, with a petroleum agreement due to be signed as African Energy went to press. The block was previously operated by Vanco Energy Company, and then by Lukoil. It lies some 150km offshore in water depths ranging from 2,000 to 4,000 metres.The block is geologically analogous to Guyana, and the ministry said ExxonMobil’s Payara discovery had positive implications for DWCTP.

Already in default on $12.8m of interest on its 2019 bonds, Afren said on 9 June it had decided to use a 30-day grace period for $11.9m of interest on its 2020 bonds. The interest was due on 9 June, and Afren warned that it did not anticipate paying the interest at the end of the 30 days. Afren said it had received assurances from a committee of creditors that they had no plans to take enforcement action on the bonds.

Operator Repsol resumed drilling of the Welwitschia-1A well in the Walvis Basin on 4 June after a series of technical problems. The well started drilling on 23 April, using the Rowan Renaissance newbuild drillship, but needed to be re-spudded 50 metres away after the wellhead housing slumped, then was further delayed by a fault in the blow-out preventer control system. Partner Tower Resources said similar problems with new drillships were not uncommon. Recent drilling has had little success, but companies with acreage offshore Namibia say that, with just 14 wells drilled to date in four basins along the 1,600km coastline, it is too early to write off the country’s potential.

Jack Keyes’ Frontier Resources International has received a petroleum exploration licence for blocks 1717 and 1817 in the Ovambo Basin, and is retaining Houston neighbour Peace River Group (PRG) for technical services

Ocean Installer has been awarded a contract for development work on the Aje field in OML 113 by Folawiyo Aje Services Limited. Ocean Installer will perform the offshore construction of the Aje Phase 1 project, including mooring buoy installation and hook-up, flowline and umbilical installation. Folawiyo Aje Services is technical adviser to field operator Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum. Offshore operations will be performed by the construction support vessel Normand Vision starting in Q1 2016.