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Rwanda, hopeful of discovering hydrocarbons reserves to underpin its rapid economic growth, is gearing up to persuade international companies that it can be a serious exploration opportunity by offering a more robust legislative framework and other incentives. An Upstream Petroleum Bill has been tabled in parliament and will be debated soon, based on the Upstream Policy approved by cabinet in July 2013. “As soon as the law is passed we will divide the country into blocks and look for prospective areas to present to companies,” minister of state for mining Evode Imena told the East African Petroleum Conference in Kigali on 4 March.

Ophir Energy on 10 November announced a binding shareholders’ agreement to form a joint operating company with OneLNG to develop the Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project. OneLNG is a joint venture between Golar LNG, which is supplying the Gandria FLNG vessel for Fortuna, and Schlumberger, which had been talking to Ophir earlier this year about developing the project before it established the joint venture with Golar.

AIM-listed Chariot Oil & Gas has been awarded a 75% interest and operatorship of the new Kenitra Offshore exploration permit and has launched a seismic survey in pursuit of a Lower Cretaceous play which spreads from the adjacent Mohammedia permit into the Kenitra acreage. Kenitra, which covers 1,400km2 in water depths ranging from 200 metres to 1,500 metres, was formerly part of the Eni-operated Rabat Deep Offshore exploration permits I-VI (AE 338/13).

Tullow Oil and Africa Oil Corporation are in the enviable position of having no other partners in the 12,638km2 Block 10BB, where oil was found in March

Ghanaian explorer Springfield Exploration and Production Limited has signed a contract with Stena Unicon Offshore Services Ghana to use the Stena Forth drillship for two wells on West Cape Three Points (WCTP) Block 2.“The campaign will first target the Oak-1x well, on trend with the Beech discovery made on the Deep Water Tano Cape Three Points Block to the south-west of WCTP Block 2,” Springfield said.

Total has pulled out of a deal to take over Anadarko Petroleum Corporation’s Ghana assets after the US independent’s new owner Occidental Petroleum Corporation sought to sell its African holdings. The move, announced by Total on 18 May, follows the French major’s announcement that it would not be taking over Anadarko assets in Algeria’s producing Berkine Basin, another of the four deals included under the purchase and sale agreement (PSA) signed in August 2019.

Tullow Oil has announced that the Wawa-1 exploration well in the Deepwater Tano licence has intersected oil and gas condensate in a Turonian turbidite channel system separate from the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) fields on the block. Wawa-1 encountered 20 metres of gas-condensate pay and 13 metres of good quality oil pay in turbidite sands.

Canada’s Artumas Group has converted $115m of bond debt into shares and successfully placed $8m of new convertible bonds. The company ran into funding problems

Madagascar Oil has carried out a share placing and open offer through London-based natural resources investment bank GMP Securities Europe to raise £49.5m ($78.4m) at 18p/share. The offering is fully underwritten by existing shareholders.

Azonto Petroleum announced on 18 December that its affiliate Vioco Petroleum had received an Exclusive Exploitation Authorisation (EEA) covering the Gazelle field in Block CI-202.The award of the EEA signed by President Alassane Ouattara follows approval of the field development plan for Gazelle by state oil company Petroci in October. Vioco is now working towards project sanction, which is expected in H1 2015, with first gas anticipated some 14 to 16 months later, in H2 2016.

Gas producer Circle Oil plans a six-well drilling programme for H1 2013 in Morocco’s onshore Sebou and Lalla Mimouna permits, targeting 40-45bcf of gross recoverable resources. Gas delivery during 2012 rose from 2.0-2.5mcf/d to 4.5mcf/d, and a third small offtaker was added in late December 2012. Offtake is expected to increase further in Q1 2013, with daily supplies rising to 6.5-7.5mcf/d.

Anadarko Petroleum Corporation has announced a gas find with the deep-water Windjammer exploration well in the offshore Rovuma Basin (AE 180/18).

Italy’s Eni has announced a new oil discovery on the Kalimba prospect in Block 15/06, estimated to contain 230m-300m barrels of light oil in place. The Kalimba-1 NFW well was drilled by the West Gemini drillship at a site 150km offshore and 50km south-east of the Armada Olombendo floating production, storage and offloading vessel on the block’s East Hub. Drilled in a water depth of 458 metres, the well reached a total depth of 1,901 metres and encountered 23 metres of 33° API oil pay in Upper Miocene sandstones.

The government has approved a new exploration and production-sharing contract (PSC) for Block C18, signed with Tullow Oil on 17 May

TGS has announced completion of its Jaan 3D seismic survey collating over 28,000km2 of data in the MSGBC Basin offshore Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau. Jaan (the Wolof word for snake) is a long strip of seismic coverage consisting of more than 12,000km2 of new data plus recently reprocessed surveys designed to map the Cretaceous Palaeo shelf-edge trend in an area that has seen a number of recent discoveries.