FAR’s offshore blocks in the Gambia could hold 1.2 billion barrels of oil

Australian oil company FAR has said its blocks in the Gambia might hold 1.2 billion barrels of oil.

The Africa-focused company on Thursday said it had carried out a detailed geotechnical evaluation for its two offshore blocks in The Gambia and completed an assessment of hydrocarbon resources.

According to FAR, combined prospective resources for the Blocks A2 and A5 have been assessed at 1.2 billion barrels (unrisked, Best Estimate, recoverable, 100% basis) with 621 million barrels net to FAR. FAR is the operator and owns a 50 percent working interest in the blocks. PC Gambia Ltd, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Petronas, holds the remaining 50% interest in the offshore blocks.

FAR last year drilled The Gambia’s first offshore well in forty years. The well, named Samo-1, turned out to be a duster, but FAR at the time said the data from the well would be critical to unlocking the hydrocarbon potential in the area, FAR said.

The company earlier this month increased its ownership in the two blocks and signed new terms. The licenses have a three-year initial exploration period, plus two optional extension periods of two years each. Another key term of the licenses is a commitment to drill one well in the first two years in either Block and to acquire, process, and interpret 450km2 of 3D seismic in the first three years.

FAR has previously said that a 3D seismic survey is planned for late 2019 to further delineate some of the identified prospects and a well is planned to be drilled in 2020.

Commenting on the resource estimate on Thursday, FAR Managing Director, Cath Norman, said: “Since making the discoveries at SNE and FAN offshore Senegal, and subsequently at FAN South and SNE North, it has been FAR’s core strategy to build on our geological knowledge, contacts, and nimbleness in the market to add high quality drilling opportunities in the MSGBC Basin [Mauritania-Senegal-Gambia-Bissau-Conakry] for our shareholders.

“Through drilling the Samo-1 well, we now have a clearer data set that has been integrated back into our models which now provides a much better understanding of the geology throughout the Gambian blocks. We look forward to completing our prospect selection and drilling again next year.”

The Blocks A2 and A5, covering 2,682 square kilometers, are next to and on-trend with FAR’s large SNE oil field in Senegal, which is expected to produce first oil in 2022 via an FPSO with a capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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