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Brenham Oil & Gas Corporation on 23 March announced a letter of award from the government giving it a 15% participating interest in four blocks in West Africa

Madagascar Oil’s new owners hope their Tsimiroro field development, whose first phase is at the front-end engineering and design stage, will be largely immune to the Covid-19 pandemic and parallel slump in global oil prices. Speaking to African Energy as part of the company’s campaign to find development partners, chairman Al Njoo said Madagascar Oil was talking to a number of Chinese companies, including Hong Kong-based bunker service provider Chimbusco Pan Nation Petro-Chemical Company, a joint venture between Petro-China and Shanghai-based Cosco Shipping. It is also in discussions with a number of Chinese banks.

Repsol is offering companies the opportunity to earn up to a 30% participating interest in its Taoudeni Basin Block Ta10. Repsol plans to drill on the block in mid-2013, with a well to be drilled back-to-back with Total.

Tullow Oil has farmed down most of its stake in the Uganda oil development to its partner Total, in a $900m deal that it says will significantly reduce development costs and give the project new impetus following a series of delays. “Farming down to Total was the ideal choice. They are a fantastic operator, and they will drive this project forward very, very quickly,” Tullow chief executive Aidan Heavey told a 11 January conference call to discuss the sale. Tullow has agreed to transfer 21.57% of its 33.33% in exploration areas 1, 1A, 2 and 3A to Total for $900m.

A London court hearing has thrown light on the relations between a frontier exploration-focused international oil company (IOC) and an African business partner, who helped deliver up three highly prospective blocks that were later farmed out to a bigger player.

The World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) has formally announced an investment in Perth-based Rialto Energy, to support its operations in Côte d’Ivoire

Eni and Vitol have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) for the development of gas discoveries in the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) Block in the Tano Basin.

Rialto Energy has agreed terms with Vitol E&P to work together to develop Rialto’s interests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Subject to approvals, Vitol will acquire a 20% interest in Rialto Energy (Ghana) Ltd in exchange for providing a facility to cover Rialto’s $7.7m obligations for the drilling of the Starfish-1 exploration well in the Accra Block, which operator Ophir Energy intends to spud in June 2013. Vitol will also acquire 65% of the shares in Rialto Energy (Côte d’Ivoire) Ltd in exchange for providing $50m of capital to be invested in a work programme for Block CI-202.

Tanzania’s draft gas bill is set to be put before parliament, which began its final session of the year on 4 November. The legislation will provide a regulatory framework for the downstream sector based on the natural gas policy passed late last year, and should provide companies such as BG Group and Statoil with the security and confidence to push ahead with a final investment decision (FID) on a two-train liquefaction facility to export the combined 47tcf of natural gas reserves they have discovered offshore in the Ruvuma Basin.

Chevron subsidiary Chevron Mauritania Exploration Limited has reached agreement to acquire a 30% non-operated working interest in offshore blocks C8, C12 and C13 from Kosmos Energy. Kosmos is preparing to drill a well on the Tortue prospect, using the Atwood Achiever drillship. Chevron will not initially fund the well, but retains the option to participate in Tortue after the transaction is completed. Kosmos retains a 60% interest in the blocks and remains the operator, while state oil company Société Mauritanienne des Hydrocarbures et du Patrimoine Minier has a 10% carried interest.

As Angola plans to raise output to 2m b/d, Total is looking further ahead, launching the Pazflor oil development on the prolific Block 17, writes Thalia Griffiths. Block 17 operator Total has awarded the main contracts for the Pazflor oil development, due on stream in 2011.

Tullow Oil says it is moving its focus away from costly deep-water exploration and looking to less expensive prospects while it waits for new cash flow from the TEN development offshore Ghana in 2016. The announcement coincided with news that the Frégate well offshore Mauritania had delivered only modest success, opening a new oil play in the Late Cretaceous Turbidites at a cost of $200m. Tullow said Mauritania was just one of six exploration campaigns the company was pursuing and it would focus its near-term efforts on Norway and East Africa.

Africa Oil Corporation announced on 10 April that it had bought another 4.75m shares in Guyana-focused Eco (Atlantic) Oil and Gas Ltd, bringing its stake to about 18.8%. Africa Oil, which also owns 35% of Africa Energy Corporation, acquired the shares on a non-brokered private placement basis.

Seadrill Partners has secured a one-well contract with Petronas subsidiary PC Gabon Upstream SA for the West Polaris to work offshore Gabon. Work is expected to start in September 2019, running to the end of the year.Petronas operates the Likuale (F14) Block offshore southern Gabon, where the Boudji-1 well drilled in Q4 2018 intersected a 90-metre oil and gas column in water depths of 2,800 metres.

Operator Cairn Energy has spudded the Fan South-1 well on the Sangomar Deep licence, described by partner Far as the first pure exploration well since the Fan-1 and SNE-1 discoveries in 2014. The well is being drilled into the South Fan prospect targeting 134m barrels of recoverable oil in several stacked reservoir targets within tieback range to the planned SNE development in the event of success.Appraisal is now complete on the SNE field, where the partners are aiming for first oil in 2021.