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With potential new partners showing interest following Cairn Energy’s two discoveries in Senegalese blocks immediately to the north, the government has restored African Petroleum Corporation’s licences for blocks A1 and A4.The licences were cancelled in January for non-performance. African Petroleum had disputed the government’s move and sought arbitration at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, but proceedings will now be dropped. African Petroleum has negotiated an extension to the first exploration period, which will now expire on 1 September 2016.

Norway’s DNO International has completed farm-ins to the Sfax Offshore exploration permit and the Ras El Besh concession under an agreement with Eurogas International and Atlas Petroleum Exploration Worldwide. DNO Tunisia now holds an 87.5% participating (100% paying) interest in the permit and the concession, and has assumed operatorship and a significant share of costs. The two licences are located in the prolific Gulf of Gabes and cover 3,296km2, mostly offshore in shallow waters. To date, three discoveries have been made with combined recoverable resources of 35m-60m barrels of oil, and the assets hold significant exploration potential, with 29 prospects estimated to contain 500m-700m barrels of unrisked resources.

BP has given Golar LNG Limited a limited notice to proceed for the provision of a floating liquefaction vessel to support the development of Phase 1 of the Greater Tortue/Ahmeyim field as the project closes in on an imminent final investment decision (FID). This follows a preliminary agreement and heads of terms for a charter agreement with BP announced by Golar in April. FID on the development is planned around year-end or early in 2019, once the governments have granted an exclusive exploitation authorisation.

Oando has denied reports that it plans to sell its Oando Energy Services (OES) drilling subsidiary as it finalises the purchase of ConocoPhillips’ Nigerian assets by Oando Energy Resources (OER). “We wish to explicitly state that OER has successfully acquired all funds required to complete the acquisition, and is awaiting the consent of the minister of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum,” Oando said in a statement on 19 February. Oando announced on 31 January that the company had secured the $1.66bn necessary to conclude the acquisition and was extending the completion date to 28 February.

PetroSA and Cairn India Group signed a farm-in agreement on 16 August for oil and gas exploration in offshore Block 1 in the Orange Basin, while Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has finalised a deal to operate Block 5/6 and Block 7.

Operator ADX Energy spudded the Sidi Dhaher well on the Chorbane permit near Sfax on 26 August. 

Tullow has lifted its declaration of force majeure over its Guinea acreage. The declaration was linked to an investigation of potential violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by Tullow’s partner Hyperdynamics, the original holder of the concession. “Diligent efforts are being made to satisfy the conditions to resuming petroleum operations which include clarification that the US FCPA investigations of Hyperdynamics will not adversely affect Tullow’s operations under the PSC,” the US company said. Industry sources had questioned the grounds for a force majeure declaration and linked the move to Tullow’s desire to cut exploration spending.

In addition to major state companies that have long been regarded as major Gulf investors abroad, such as Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (Kufpec), a number of Kuwait-based companies have been established in recent years with aspirations to become major E&P companies by investing in Africa and other emerging frontiers.

State oil company Petroci Holdings has opted to increase its paying interest in the Gazelle Field Exclusive Exploitation Area (EEA) operated by Australia’s Rialto Energy on CI-202. Petroci, which holds 15%, has announced it will back in for an additional 11%.

AIM-listed Tower Resources is aiming to drill the Njom-3 well on the shallow-water Thali licence in the Rio del Rey Basin in June, while also pursuing farm-out talks. The company, which in January won a one-year extension of the licence (formerly known as Dissoni) to September 2020, said long-lead items for the well were already at its base in Douala. “Some testing equipment will still need to be mobilised prior to spudding the well, along with personnel, and so this intended date is still subject to change,” Tower said.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is building a 311km pipeline to carry crude from the Ronier and Mimosa fields in the Chari-Baguirmi region south of the capital to N’djamena’s new refinery.

Having lifted force majeure, BP has started preparations to resume exploration (AE 232/1). Algeria’s Sonatrach also plans to restart exploration soon.

ANGOLA: First Subsea contract for PSVM; CAMEROON: Polarcus in seismic survey for Noble/Petronas; GABON: Vaalco extends Etame permit; LIBYA: Hess tests offshore well; MOZAMBIQUE: Anadarko drilling; NAMIBIA: Chariot starts second 3D survey; SENEGAL: FAR extension; SOUTH AFRICA: Companies to explore for shale gas; SUDAN: Three new agreements for CNPC; TUNISIA: PGS to shoot seismic for AuDAX

Two wells drilled by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation have failed to find commercial hydrocarbons. In its Q2 operations report on 24 July, Anadarko said the Paon-6A well on Block CI-103 finished drilling during the quarter and did not encounter hydrocarbons. The well was drilled to appraise the Paon discovery, and the company and its partners are evaluating next steps for the project. On Block CI-527, the Colibri-1X exploration well spudded in June and recently finished drilling.

According to Hong Kong-registered, Ethiopia-based SouthWest Energy chairman and chief executive Tewodros Ashenafi, the use of full-tensor gravity (FTG) geophysical surveying technology – initially developed