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Ugandan President seeks Nigerian oil expertise; Bahraini link up for Africa plays

Ganoub El Wadi Holding Petroleum Company (Ganope) has given Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation (GSPC) operatorship of three exploration blocks. GSPC, in consortium with Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) and Oil India Ltd, has been awarded Block 3 South Quseir and Block 4 South Sinai.

SOCO plans drilling; Sea Dragon to drill; Vitol seeks farm-in partners; Circle Oil makes gas find; Total farms into deep water

Ahead of the 3 December bid submission deadline for the seventh licensing round, Algerian national oil company (NOC) Sonatrach is talking to five major operators about their potential participation in the largest and most complex element of the auction – to further explore and develop the substantial gas deposits identified in the Ahnet basin

Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmy in April told the International Energy Forum in Rome that the race to develop the ageing Abu Qir gas field was between Italy’s Edison and the UK’s BG Group, which produces 40% of Egypt’s gas supply (AE 137/17). More recently, it emerged that Edison had offered $1.4bn as a signature bonus payment for the field’s export rights and had thus become the front runner.

A number of gas discoveries in recent months have encouraged Entreprise Tunisienne d’Activités Pétrolières (Etap) to advance its development of the South Tunisia Gas Project (STGP), which it hopes will place the country among the ranks of gas exporters (AE 142/16).

Norway’s Aker ASA has made a first foray into African exploration with the operatorship of the South Deepwater Tano block. The award by Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has been ratified by parliament. Aker will have 85% in the block, alongside GNPC with 10% and Aker’s local partner Chemu Power Ltd with 5%.

ERHC Energy has filed a lawsuit in the Federal High Court in Abuja “to stop any tampering with its rights” in Blocks 5 and 6 of the Nigeria/São Tomé Joint Development Zone (JDZ), following media reports that it had been removed from the blocks.

Major production contracts that NOC has renegotiated with three of its major international partners over the past year have opened the door to the first EOR projects in veteran fields, writes John Hamilton, recently in Vienna.

As it looks for farm-in partners, PetroSA is making some very bullish statements about its north-west Sudan acreage, on Block 14. The South African explorer’s geoscience manager Dr Chris Davies said in Vienna on 5 November that the nearly 300,000km2 acreage had “significant potential”, with several structures identified

The African Development Bank has approved a senior loan of $150m through its Private Sector Window to finance BG’s Hasdrubal oil and gas field development project in the Gulf of Gabes (AE 140/14).

President Fradiqué de Menezes sacked Natural Resources and Energy Minister Agostinho Rita following corruption allegations, replacing him with a businessman also drawn from his Movement of Democratic Forces for Change (MDFM) party, Carlos Fernandes Marques.

Block 1 operator Heritage Oil has announced an oil discovery with the Warthog-1 well, the first to be drilled on the block. The well was drilled to a total depth of 911 metres and found a hydrocarbon-bearing interval of 150 metres, with 46 metres of net hydrocarbon pay.

Apache Corporation has announced that its WKAL-C-1X discovery on the West Kalabsha concession had established the westernmost production in Egypt’s Western Desert.

Norway’s Grenland Group has signed a NOK307m ($46m) contract with FMC Technologies for deliveries of subsea structures to Total’s Pazflor development on Block 17 (AE 144/19).