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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.

Total’s Luiperd well on Block 11B/12B is now expected to spud in Q3 to follow up the Brulpadda discovery, slightly later than the previous spud date of June. Licence partner Africa Energy Corporation said in its Q1 results that the Odfjell Deepsea Stavanger semi-submersible rig was in dry dock in Bergen for maintenance and modifications in preparation for the upcoming drilling campaign.The rig is expected to mobilise from the North Sea to South Africa in Q2 to spud the Luiperd well in Q3.“

DR CONGO: Oil Ministry to meter production; EQUATORIAL GUINEA: CNOOC rig contract; ETHIOPIA: Aero survey plans; LIBYA: More RWE discoveries; LIBYA: Hellenic sells up; LIBYA: Punj Lloyd rig contract; NAMIBIA: Seismicl plans; SIERRA LEONE: Elixir hits snag on SL-4; TUNISIA: Ashtart upgrade contract

A consortium led by China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has announced an oil discovery near the Adar oilfield in Block 3. New oil minister Awow Daniel Chuang told Platts the discovery was estimated to contain 300m barrels of recoverable oil.The discovery could potentially be tied back to the nearby Adar production facilities, from where oil is sent to a central processing plant at Paloch, then piped north to Port Sudan for export.

Operator Cairn Energy has recovered oil samples in the Fan-1 exploration well. Partner FAR said elevated gas and fluorescence had been encountered in a shallow secondary target and the presence of oil was confirmed by an intermediate logging programme. Oil samples from a thin sand were collected for further analysis. On 27 August, the well had reached a depth of 4,402 metres, and was drilling ahead to planned total depth of 5,000 metres. Cairn expects to complete the well by the end of September, then move the rig to the SNE-1 well location, the second well of a two-well programme offshore Senegal.

Three of the biggest exploration programmes planned in Libya over the next period are now under way.

National Oil Corporation (NOC) chairman Mustafa Sanalla has unveiled a $60bn five-year investment plan to increase crude oil production from 1.25m b/d now to 2.1m b/d by 2024 and gas output to 3.5 bcf/d. Speaking at the Libyan British Business Council in Tunis on 26 November, he said that LYD15bn ($10.5bn) would come from state budgets and the remaining 80% from strategic investors.The first step is to spend a relatively modest $1.2bn to raise production to 1.5m b/d in 2020.

Subsea, pipeline and riser engineering and management contractor Wood Group Kenny (WGK) has been awarded an engineering services contract to support Tullow and its partners through the execution phase of the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) project in the Deepwater Tano licence.

Licence awards to unknown companies have caused a storm in Sierra Leone, with government officials blaming a ‘transparent’ process imposed on them by external consultants for the controversy. Thalia Griffiths and Eleanor Gillespie investigate the exploration boom in an emerging Transform Margin play.

Fiscal reforms lie at the centre of amendments to Algeria’s hydrocarbons law, which prime minister Abdelmalek Sellal’s new government approved in late September, but which still must be published and passed by parliament