Page 13 - AfrOil Week 45 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

According to ANPG, the company has been and is serving as operator through its subsidi-
working to expand exploration and increase ary Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Ltd.
production at the offshore licence area. The remaining equity in the project is divided
“As operator of the block, ExxonMobil is between BP Exploration (Angola) Ltd, a subsid-
implementing new technology and multi-year iary of BP (UK), with 24%; ENI Angola Explo-
drilling technologies and a multi-year drilling ration BV, a subsidiary of Eni (Italy), with 18%;
programme and expects to produce approx- Equinor Angola Block 15 AS, a subsidiary of
imately 40,000 [barrels per day (bpd)] of oil],” Equinor (Norway), with 12%; and Sonangol
the statement said. P&P, a subsidiary of Angola’s national oil com-
The US major has a 36% stake in the project pany (NOC), with 10%. ™

Kinetiko Energy spuds core hole

270-06C at SER 270 in South Africa

SOUTH AFRICA ASX-LISTED Kinetiko Energy reported on market.”
November 8 that it had spudded core hole 270- Australia’s Kinetiko is focused on the devel-
06C, its first well at the Southern Exploration opment of shallow conventional gas reserves
Right 270 (SER 270) licence area. and coal-bed methane (CBM) deposits in South
In a statement, the company said it had begun Africa. It is carrying out the Amersfoort project
drilling the well on November 3 and would sink in South Africa’s Mpumalanga province. ™
core hole 270-06C to depths of more than 500
metres. It did not say when it expected to finish
drilling operations.
The Australian company did note, though,
that the new well was being drilled to a greater
depth than its counterparts further to the north,
in sections of the block where Kinetiko has
made discoveries.
This is because 270-06C is meant to help test
the potential of southerly dipping basement
structures of the Karoo basin that may contain
deeper and higher-pressure gassy sands and coal
sequences, it explained.
If these tests prove successful, they could help
open up a new area of SER 270 for future devel-
opment, it noted.
“Kinetiko expects to core the entire strati-
graphical profile from the top of the dolerites to
an approximate terminal depth of beyond 500
metres,” the statement added. “On completion
of the drilling, the company will log the borehole
and perform on-site gas emission and desorp-
tion analysis.”
Nick de Blocq, the CEO of Kinetiko,
expressed optimism about the possibility that
the company might eventually become a sup-
plier of gas to South Africa’s domestic market.
“This borehole represents the first of many we
have planned in this area. The results of this
coring are awaited with great anticipation and
we have confidence in our theory to discover
higher pressures and gas flow rates with another
successful effort in our growing list of gas-rich
exploration boreholes,” he said. “The proximate
location of our southernmost boreholes to the
steel-smelting and manufacturing centre of
Newcastle could mean a simplified logistical
solution to get the gas to an increasingly hungry Core well 270-06C drilling site in Mpumalanga province (Photo: Kinetiko)

Week 45 10•November•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P13