African Petroleum, an independent oil and gas exploration company operating high impact exploration licences offshore West Africa, is pleased to announce an update on behalf of its wholly owned subsidiaries European Hydrocarbon Limited and African Petroleum Sierra Leone Limited to the prospective oil resources at the 100% owned and operated licence blocks SL-03 and SL-4A-10 in Sierra Leone (“Sierra Leone Licences”).
The Company engaged the independent petroleum consultant, ERC Equipoise Ltd (“ERCE”), to prepare an updated assessment of prospective oil resources attributable to the Company’s Sierra Leone Licences (the “ERCE Letter”).
The upgrade to the independently assessed prospective resources follows the recent announcement on 5 December 2017 regarding the entry into the Second Extension Periods for the two Sierra Leone Licences and takes into account two new material prospects identified by the Company: Leo and Vega. Pursuant to our commitments on the licences, African Petroleum will, on conclusion of further assessment with ERCE, provide the Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate with confirmation of its drilling programme ahead of the notification deadline of 31 October 2018 for both SL-03 and SL-4A-10.
The upgrade to the independently assessed prospective resources follows the recent announcement on 5 December 2017 regarding the entry into the Second Extension Periods for the two Sierra Leone Licences and takes into account two new material prospects identified by the Company: Leo and Vega. Pursuant to our commitments on the licences, African Petroleum will, on conclusion of further assessment with ERCE, provide the Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate with confirmation of its drilling programme ahead of the notification deadline of 31 October 2018 for both SL-03 and SL-4A-10.
Commenting on the update, African Petroleum’s CEO Jens Pace said:
“We are delighted that we have seen such a material increase in our independently assessed prospective oil resources in Sierra Leone to over 2.5 billion barrels (unrisked). African Petroleum has experienced increased industry interest in this acreage due to technology improvements and cost reductions in ultra-deep water drilling together with the materiality of the prospects identified by the Company on the SL-03 and SL-4A-10 licences. We will continue our de-risking efforts on these licences and, in due course, work towards formulating a suitable drilling strategy that meets with the current licence commitments.”
