Upstream

bp has announced start of production from its Platina project on Block 18 offshore Angola. The field was brought online ahead of schedule and under the contractor’s group initial budget. The block is operated by bp Angola (Block 18) B.V. (36.34%) along with BP Exploration Beta (9.66%), Sonangol SSI (7.72%), and Sonangol E&P (16.28%). The […]

The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) showed up for Nigeria’s oil sector this week in Durban, during the Intra-African Trade Fair 2021. The bank has signed three separate deals totaling almost $2bn with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), indigenous operator Eroton Exploration & Production and new Nigerian independent Mars Exploration & Production. A $1.04 […]

FAR has successfully spudded the Bambo-1 exploratory well on Block A2 offshore The Gambia. The drilling campaign will take about one month and drill the well to a depth of about 3,400 metres. Bambo-1 will drill into a series of vertically staked targets with a combined estimated recoverable prospective resource of over 1 billion barrels […]

Gabon is thought to hold anywhere between 3 to 5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas, although the country remains a small gas producer. To date, most of its gas has remained on the ground or flared – with only small quantities monetised domestically for power generation in Libreville and Port Gentil. But as Gabon […]

ExxonMobil’s affiliate in Angola has just awarded Valaris a two-year contract for drillship VALARIS DS-9. The rig is to be reactivated and mobilized to Angola in June 2022. This marks the resumption of drilling activities for ExxonMobil in Angola following a June 2019 agreement with National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG) to further […]

BW Energy has just signed an agreement with Aquadrill LLC to acquire the semisubmersible drilling rig “Leo” for a total consideration of $14m. Surprisingly, the rig is not to be used for the company’s flagship Gabonese nor Brazilian assets, but for the development of the Kudu gas field offshore Namibia. The acquisition of the “Leo” […]

TechnipFMC sees subsea opportunities across Nigeria and Angola totaling between $3bn and $5bn within the next 24 months, the company said during its Q3 2021 earnings conference call. This remains in line with its previous estimate released at the end of Q2. Angola to the front The subsea market in the region will be heavily […]

BW Energy has announced that the hook-up of the DTM-6H and DTM-7H production wells at its Dussafu Marin Permit offshore Gabon has been completed and handover to production operations made. DTM-7H (Gamba formation) was brought online yesterday, while DTM-6H (Dentale formation) is expected online in the coming days. Both wells form part of the four […]

Nested in the Gulf of Guinea, Gabon has built itself a reputation of environmental stewardship and sustainable development of its natural resources. The country of less than 2.5m notably hosts Africa’s largest forest elephant population and is covered at 88% by rainforest. Despite being an established offshore hydrocarbons province, Gabon is steadily diversifying away from […]

Trident Energy’s ongoing offshore campaign in Equatorial Guinea continues to progress with the successful installation this month of a new gas lift distribution unit (GLDU) at Ceiba. This notably follows the successful completion on the field of a deep offshore hot tapping operation in April this year, and the start of a three-well drilling campaign […]

Kosmos Energy has just announced the close of a transaction by which it has acquired an additional 18% in the Jubilee Field and an additional 11% in the TEN Fields in Ghana from Occidental Petroleum (OXY) for a price of $550m. Both assets were previously chased by TotalEnergies as part of its broader acquisition of […]

BW Energy has been provisionally awarded two offshore exploration blocks in Gabon as part of the country’s 12th Offshore Licensing Round. The company will be operator of blocks G12-13 and H12-13 with a 37.5% interest along with VAALCO Energy (37.5%) and Panoro Energy (25%). “The PSCs will have an exploration period totaling eight years which […]

Decklar Resources has announced it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent to purchase all of the issued and outstanding shares of Wesfield Exploration and Production. Westfield E&P is the Nigerian entity that holds a Risk Finance and Technical Services Agreement (RFTSA) with Erebiina Energy Resources, the recent winner of the Emohua Marginal Field […]

Following Cuica in July this year, Eni has now achieved first oil from Cabaça North on Block 15/06 offshore Angola. Both fields are tied back to the Olombendo FPSO commissioned back in 2017 to initially develop the Cabaça Southeast and Cabaça Central UM8 fields on the license’s East hub. While Cabaça North was always going […]

Canadian junior African Oil Corp. has announced today a new production plateau of 120,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) from Blocks 10BB and 13T onshore Kenya, up from the previous estimate of 100,000 bopd. Both licenses are located within the South Lokichar basin and are known as Project Oil Kenya, which Africa Oil Corp. […]

Ocean Yield’s Dhirubhai-1 FPSO, which had been contracted by Reliance Industries offshore India from September 2008 to September 2018, is the likely contender to be redeployed offshore Ghana for the development of the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block where lies the Pecan field. The vessel was converted in 2008 and has a oil production […]

TechnipFMC sees subsea opportunities across Nigeria and Angola totaling between $3bn and $5bn within the next 24 months, the company said during its Q2 2021 earnings conference call.The subsea market in the region will be heavily driven by TotalEnergies’ projects in Angola. These notably include the development of the Begonia (Block 17/06) and Cameia (Block […]

Following the disappointing results of its Hibiscus Extension (DHIBM-2) well on the Dussafu Marin permit earlier this year, BW Energy has discovered oil at Hibiscus North via the DHBNM-1 exploration well. The well had a geological analogue to the Ruche Field, where the Gamba structure was the primary target, and had estimated potential reserves of […]

VAALCO Energy has announced that it has completed the feasibility study for the development of the Venus discovery offshore Equatorial Guinea’s mainland. The discovery was made back in 2005 and is located within Block P, where VAALCO farmed in in 2012. The block’s estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) is of over 20 million barrels of oil […]

PanAfrican Energy Tanzania, the subsidiary of the Orca Energy Group that operates the wells and gas processing plant at Songo Songo in Tanzania, has signed an agreement with Exalo Drilling for the workover of three onshore wells. Activities are set to start in September 2021 on Songo Songo Island. The 2021 workover programme will notably […]

ARA Petroleum Tanzania (APT), which took over the operatorship of the onshore Ruvuma PSA in Tanzania last year, has received a two-year extension of the license. The granting of the extension was necessary to complete key exploration activities on the block, including the acquisition of 200 km2 of 3D seismic data and the drilling of […]

South Africa has been home to some of the world’s largest discoveries in recent years, with TotalEnergies opening up a new hydrocarbon’s province in the Outeniqua Basin via its Brulpadda (2019) and Luiperd (2020) discoveries. But as TotalEnergies and its partner work towards the set-up of an early production system on these discoveries, attention has […]

Private Nigerian trading house Beluga Energy has signed a binding Heads of Agreement with Tower Resources Cameroon last month to acquire a 49% non-operating working interest in the Thali production sharing contract (PSC) offshore Cameroon. As operator, Tower Resources had been looking for a partner for some time in order to drill the NJOM-3 well. […]

It took almost two decades, two historic crashes in commodity prices and two recessions for Nigeria to finally adopt its new Petroleum Industry Bill. Following its passing at both chambers of Parliament in July, the bill was officially signed into law by President Buhari today. The bill is expected to provide much-needed regulatory certainty for […]