Upstream

The Petroleum Directorate of Sierra Leone officially launched the country’s 5th Petroleum Licensing Round in London today. In total, 63,643km2 of offshore acreage is up for grab across 56 graticular blocks of some 1,360km2 each. A contract area is formed with a minimum of three graticular blocks. The Licensing Round will remain open until September […]

Innoson Oil & Gas, part of Nigeria’s IVM Innoson Group, revealed last week the findings of a third-party evaluation conducted by Ryder Scott Co. on its concession offshore Sierra Leone. According to the American engineering and geological consultants, Innoson Oil & Gas’ blocks could contain up to 8.2 Tcf of gas and 234m barrels of […]

Investing in Nigeria may not be for the faint-hearted, but the country continues to prove times and again that it can be a highly rewarding market. By securing an indirect interest in some of the country’s largest producing deep-water blocks in 2020, Africa Oil Corp. has shown the benefits that come with betting on Nigeria’s […]

LSE-listed Wildcat Petroleum (WCAT) had announced the signing of a Reconnaissance Permit Agreement with the Petroleum Directorate of Sierra Leone (PDSL). The permit grants Wildcat Petroleum non-exclusive rights to conduct reconnaissance operations over 24,000 km2 for a period of six months. The company will notably carry out a desktop study using geophysical and geological data […]

Afentra has officialised its entry in Angola with the signing of Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Sonangol’s upstream subsidiary Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção. The one-year old, AIM-listed independent is acquiring from Sonangol a 20% non-operated interest in the producing Block 3/05 and a 40% non-operated interest in exploration Block 23 for up to $130m, […]

On April 5th, the Angolan National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG) opened a tender for eight oil blocks in the Lower Congo and Kwanza offshore basins. These include Blocks 16/21, 31/21, 32/21, 33/21 and 34/21 in the Lower Congo and Blocks 7/21, 8/21 and 9/21 in the Kwanza Basin. In the presence of Minister of Mineral Resources, Petroleum […]

Following the completion of the pre-qualification process for Mozambique’s 6th Licensing Round, a total of 13 companies have submitted documents. Interested bidders mostly include national oil companies, including CNOOC, Sinopec International, and PetroChina International (CNPC) of China, ONGC Videsh of India, Rosneft (RN Angoche) of Russia and QatarEnergy. The IOCs that already have blocks in […]

Unlocking Africa’s oil and gas potential is now imperative against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the resulting crude, diesel, and gas supply crunch. This has rendered European dependence on Russian energy untenable, creating a major opportunity for Africa to position itself as a crucial option to increase the supply to the global […]

Geo Associates, who is about to drill in Zimbabwe what is believed to be the largest undrilled structure onshore Africa, has just committed to a second well this year. The company is a subsidiary of Australian independent Invictus Energy and holds an 80% interest in SG 4571 over the Cabora Bassa Basin in northern Zimbabwe. […]

Economic recovery, geopolitics and the overall global energy demand and supply have impacted the price of both crude oil and natural gas in the last couple of months. A reality that has gotten genuine industry players working, especially within Africa. On the continent, oil players are ramping up activity first for their domestic markets, and […]

On Sunday, Italian major Eni and national oil company Sonatrach have announced a new significant onshore oil and associated gas discovery in their Zemlet el Arbi concession within the HDLE prospect. This is the first of five exploratory wells planned in the Berjine North Basin in the Algerian desert. The concession is operated by their […]

Australian independent Far has commenced steps to withdraw from its interests in the Esperanca Blocks 4A & 5A and Sinapa Block 2 offshore Guinea Bissau, the company said today. The licenses are operated by PetroNor E&P with a 78.57% interest while FAR holds the remaining 21.43%. In October 2020, the current exploration phases for the […]

The state-owned national oil companies of Qatar and Namibia, QatarEnergy and NAMCOR E&P, have signed a Cooperation Agreement in Doha to deepen the energy cooperation between both countries. Under the agreement, QatarEnergy will support NAMCOR E&P in the development of a sustainable upstream oil and gas sector in Namibia, notably by providing training and human […]

Eni has announced the start of production from its Ndungu early production development project on Block 15/06 offshore Angola. The field was discovered in 2019 and is now tied-back to the Ngoma FPSO and is the third startup on the block in only seven months. The project has an expected production rate of 20,000 barrels […]

TotalEnergies, who has a 40% operated interest in block 2913b within Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) 56, has confirmed that it has made a major light oil discovery at the Venus-1X well. The discovery was also officially confirmed this morning by its co-venturers Impact Oil & Gas and Namibia’s state-owned oil company NAMCOR. Venus was one […]

SONATRACH International (SIPEX BVI), the international subsidiary of the Algerian national oil company, has recently renewed its onshore production sharing contract (PSC) in Niger. On February 4th, it signed in Niamey the updated PSC for its Kafra Block. The initial PSC was signed in 2015 and led to the successful drilling of two exploratory wells. […]

Nigeria’s oil and condensate production was up +14% Month-over-Month (MoM) between December and January, latest data from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) shows. Oil production only was up about +17% and reached almost 1.4 million barrels of oil per day (bopd) at the start of the year. This is a level Nigeria had […]

After weeks of speculation, Namibia’s national oil company NAMCOR has confirmed that Shell made a light oil discovery at the Graff-1 well on the PEL-39 license in the Orange Basin. The block is operated by Shell with a 45% interest along with QatarEnergy (45%) and NAMCOR (10%). The Graff-1 deep-water well was drilled to a […]

Shell’s production of liquids and natural gas in Africa has been halved in only two years. The major closed 2021 with a liquids production of only 89,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the continent, compared with 183,000 bpd at the start of 2020. Similarly, its African production of natural gas was down to 448 MMscfd […]

TotalEnergies, CNOOC and the Uganda National Oil Co. have taken a final investment decision (FID) today on the development of onshore oilfields around the Lake Albert in Uganda, and a massive export pipeline to Tanzania. The first discovery was made in January 2006 by Hardman Resources at the Mputa-1 well. Since then, over 1.4bn barrels […]

After two years of delay, the Nigerian authorities have finally approved PetroNor’s acquisition of Panoro Energy’s subsidiaries in Nigeria, Pan-Petroleum Services Holding BV and Pan-Petroleum Nigeria Holding. The deal was initially inked in October 2019 and had been awaiting government consent since then. Through this acquisition, PetroNor is acquiring Pan Petroleum Aje Ltd, which holds […]

Australian independent FAR has announced that its Bambo-1X exploratory well offshore The Gambia did not interpret any moveable oil despite encountering good oil shows. The well was drilled to a total depth of 3317 metres MDBRT within Block A2 just south of Senegal’s Sangomar oil field. FAR is operator of the A2 license with a […]

After months of negotiations and site visits, Savannah Energy has announced the execution of share purchase agreements (SPAs) worth $626m with ExxonMobil and PETRONAS to acquire their oil & gas assets in Cameroon and Chad. The deals will see the British independent gaining a combined 75% controlling interest in the Doba Oil Project and 70% […]