Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 01 2021

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These firms will now be able to proceed to the exploration permit, was drilled to a total depth of
final stage of the contest, he said. 5,618 metres measured depth (MD) to intersect
Osu did not name any of the shortlisted bid- the Mungaroo Formation. The formation had
ders or say when the department hoped to wrap been estimated to contain 15 trillion cubic feet
up the licensing round. He stressed, though, that (424.8bn cubic metres) in prospective recover-
the bidding process was “still ongoing in line able resources.
with our published timelines on [the] DPR web- “Ironbark was a world-scale prospect in a
site and bid portal.” highly prospective address, and it needed drill-
In Angola, the National Oil, Gas and Biofu- ing. We got an answer, but it was not the one we
els Agency (ANPG) has set a date for the launch wanted,” said NZOG CEO Andrew Jefferies.
of a licensing round covering nine blocks in the He added that it would take time before the dry
Lower Congo Basin and the Kwanza Basin. The hole’s implications for the play were understood.
contest had originally been due to take place in WA-359-P had been expected to serve as a
May 2020, but the agency has now committed backfill for the existing North West Shelf (NWS)
to a start date of April 30, 2021. It will accept liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project, given
offers until June 9, 2021, and all participating that the permit is located just 50 km from exist- Waitsia has
firms must be prepared to meet “[as] a manda- ing infrastructure. This plan now appears to be
tory condition of participation the payment of off the table, but Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Beach reached a final
an entry fee in the amount of $1mn, which will recently greenlit the onshore Waitsia gas project
allow access to the data packages related to the to serve as a new source of feedstock for the giant investment
basins to bid,” ANPG said in a statement. export project.
In other news, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Mines Beach said on December 23 that Waitsia, its decision (FID) on
and Petroleum has announced plans to exit the 50:50 joint venture with Mitsui, had reached a initial funding for
contract it signed with US-based GreenComm final investment decision (FID) on initial fund-
Technologies last April for the construction of ing for its 250 TJ (6.5mn cubic metres) per day its second phase
a new gas-to-liquids (GTL) plant in the Somali second phase of development. The independent
region. A ministry official confirmed earlier this said full funding would be committed once cer- of development
week that the $3.6bn deal was being cancelled tain regulatory approvals and commercial con-
because GreenComm had grossly misrepre- ditions were resolved, with these anticipated to
sented its technical and financial capabilities. be wrapped up in the first quarter.
Waitsia is one of the country’s largest onshore
If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping discoveries in the last four decades. Beach’s man-
Africa’s oil and gas sector then please click here for aging director Matt Kay described it as “a world-
NewsBase’s AfrOil Monitor. class, low-cost, onshore gas resource,” saying that
his company was “thrilled to be growing [its]
AsianOil: BP’s dry hole offshore WA portfolio in Western Australia.”
UK super-major BP’s Ironbark-1 exploration
well offshore Western Australia has turned out If you’d like to read more about the key events shaping
to be a dry hole, the developer’s junior partners Asia’s oil and gas sector then please click here for
announced last week. Cue Energy Resources, NewsBase’s AsianOil Monitor.
Beach Energy and New Zealand Oil and Gas
(NZOG) revealed on December 29 that “no sig- DMEA: Mozambique militancy on the rise
nificant hydrocarbon shows” had been encoun- France’s Total has withdrawn workers from
tered. As such, BP intends to plug and abandon Mozambique LNG, following an attack by sus-
the well in line with pre-drill planning. pected Islamists within the $20bn export pro-
The well, which lies in the WA-359-P ject’s concession area.

Week 01 07•January•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11