A decade ago and the main news flow came from West Africa, notably Angola and Nigeria. Mauritania was bubbling away albeit that story has since rather fizzled out and the hugely-successful Kosmos and Tullow campaigns offshore Ghana were not yet on the radar.
As for Namibia, that was barely talked about though the formidable Skeleton Coast and the ultra-arid Namibian Desert featured in a TV documentary or two.
The news flow out of West Africa remains robust. Ghana is now centre-stage thanks to the stunning family of discoveries gathered together under the Jubilee Project; so too is Nigeria but for the wrong reason because of deepening in-country problems and kidnappings of offshore personnel; Namibia is now on the map, with talk of another Angola-style success story perhaps, while other African states with a westerly aspect are mostly now in play too.
A good example of fresh news with an Aberdeen slant is Dana Petroleum’s success in securing a production sharing contract (PSC) for the Bakassi West block in Cameroon. Dana will be the operator (55%), working in partnership with Madison (35%) and SoftRock (10%).
Bakassi West is situated in the Rio del Rey Basin, south west Cameroon, adjoining the border of Nigeria on the southern margin of the Niger Delta and covering an area of almost 390sq.km.
This PSC gives Dana access to prospective, shallow water exploration acreage in a new country in West Africa.
o EAST AFRICA
By contrast, 10 years ago, East Africa was basically a non-story. Yes, there was a small amount of coastal exploration but nothing of any consequence. In 2006, Dana with Global and Woodside drilled offshore Kenya using Japan’s new research drillship, the Chikyu in a bold attempt.
The programme came to an abrupt end after the first well when Woodside pulled out, forcing Dana and Global to take legal action against their erstwhile Australian partner. In April 2010, the parties settled out of court, receiving a $12million pay-off from Woodside.
East Africa then went quiet, at least in terms of drilling activity, basically until Anadarko burst into local and industry headlines by announcing a series of huge gas finds.
It was in December 2006 when Anadarko signed up to acreage covering Area 1 in the Rovuma Basin, northern Mozambique.
Since that time, this US independent and its partners have safely drilled a string of deepwater wells within an area of some 260sq.km (100 square miles) discovering an estimated 17 to 30+ trillion cu.ft of recoverable natural gas in an area called the “Prosperidade” complex. Four of the discovery wells (Windjammer, Barquentine, Lagosta and Camarão) were among the largest discoveries in all of Africa during 2010 and 2011.
The company has gone on to make further finds, the latest of which is Atum. The Atum-1 discovery well encountered more than 92m (300ft) of net gas pay in two high-quality Oligocene fan systems. It said that preliminary data indicate this latest discovery is connected to the company’s Golfinho discovery located about 16.5km to the north-west.
“With this latest discovery at Atum and a successful upcoming appraisal program, we believe the total estimated recoverable natural gas resource in Mozambique’s Offshore Area 1 is 30-60TCF, and the current upside for total gas in place for the discovered reservoirs on the block is approaching 100TCF. We still have additional exploration opportunities that could expand the resource potential further,” said Al Walker, Anadarko president and CEO on June 11.
According to consultancy Infield, there are four main East Africa plays – Kenya, Mozambique, Madagascar and Tanzania.
o Tanzania
BG Group has hit gas with each of the five exploration wells drilled since it farmed into Tanzania’s blocks 1, 3 and 5 in 2010. The block 4 Pweza, Chewa and Chaza wells have been drilled in deepwater in the northern part of the Ruvuma Basin and the Mafia Deep Offshore Basin held by BG and Ophir Energy.
The other two discoveries are located on block 1; Jodari is located about 39km offshore southern Tanzania and Mzia lies some 23km to the north of the Jodari-1 well.
Statoil has become the latest to announce a huge find offshore Tanzania. Lavani-1 is the second discovery well drilled by Statoil and partner ExxonMobil on block 2. Logging results from the Lavani well confirm a new high-impact discovery with a preliminary resource estimate of 3TCF of gas in place. The well was drilled by the Ocean Rig Poseidon drillship in some 2,400m of water and encountered 95m of excellent quality reservoir sandstone with high porosity and high permeability.
With the Chinese government recently providing Tanzania with a $1.06billion loan to construct new infrastructure, which includes a new gas pipeline, interest in this region is very positive. Other major players in the region are Statoil and ExxonMobil with its Zafarani discovery.
o Kenya
It is thought at Infield that any discoveries made offshore Kenya may have similar geological composition to Uganda and Mozambique. This has attracted mid-rankers and majors, who are buying some of the stakes previously held by independents such as Cove Energy, Origin Oil and Pancontinental. The majors include Premier Oil, Apache Oil, and Tullow Oil, and have planned more intensive drillings over the next 12 months. Total has taken a 40% stake in five exploration blocks off the coast of Kenya and is in partnership with Anadarko and Cove energy. Exploration drilling in the area is set for 2013.
o Mozambique
Mozambique is where French oil and gas major Total plans to drill its first East Africa offshore exploration well early in 2013 next year, hoping to emulate the huge gas discoveries made by others in offshore areas. Both Anadarko, as indicated above, and ENI have announced major gas discoveries and are considering large-scale investments in a LNG export scheme following unitisation talks.
o Madagascar
This huge island located offshore East Africa is believed to hold enormous reserves of gas, industry sources say, with seismic data suggesting that there are massive offshore oil and gas deposits along all East Africa’s coastline, centred largely on a fault line running from Somalia south to Madagascar, making it one of the last great frontiers in the hunt for hydrocarbons.
Companies such as ENI, Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas and the giant CNOOC have all moved into the region in the last few years. Plans are afoot to construct a liquefied natural gas export terminal, the region’s first, to supply ever-rising energy demand in Asia by tanker across the Indian Ocean.
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