Page 12 - AfrOil Week 47 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Eco Atlantic strikes out at Gazania-1

SOUTH AFRICA UK-BASED Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas reported the Island Innovator rig, owned by Island Drill-
that it had not found any crude oil or natural ing Co., to drill the Gazania-1 exploration well
gas in the Gazania-1 exploration well drilled at at a site about 25 km from Northern Cape. The
Block 2B offshore South Africa in the Orange companies have been saying they hope to find
basin. about 300mn barrels of light crude oil at the site.
In a statement dated November 18, Eco UK-based Eco Atlantic acquired its 50%
Atlantic said it had sunk Gazania-1 to the tar- stake in and operatorship of the Block 2B pro-
get depth of 2,360 metres after spudding it on ject via a takeover of Azinam Group, which
October 10. Since there is no evidence that the holds equity stakes in a number of blocks off-
well holds hydrocarbons in commercial quanti- shore South Africa and Namibia, in early 2022.
ties, it will now be plugged and abandoned, the The remaining equity in the joint venture is
company said. split between Africa Energy Corp. (Canada),
Colin Kinley, Eco Atlantic’s co-founder and with 27.5%; Panoro 2B, a subsidiary of Pan-
COO, explained that the results obtained from oro Energy (Norway), with 12.5%; and Crown
the Gazania-1 well had not been entirely disap- Energy (Sweden), with 10%. ™
pointing in light of a discovery previously made
at the AJ-1 exploration well.
“Gases normally associated with light oil
were encountered throughout the drilling of
the Gazania-1 well,” he commented. “This, in
our view, confirms [that] the active hydrocar-
bon system, proven by the A-J1 discovery well
in 1988, extends to the part of the basin where
the Gazania-1 well is located. Further seismic
interpretation will likely lead to the definition of
viable areas for trapping downdip of Gazania-1
closer to the 1988 oil discovery A-J1.”
In light of these positive signs, Eco Atlantic
has not given up plans for development of Block
2B. On the one hand, the statement said, the
company and its joint venture partners are in the
process of logging the well and will analyse the
results in detail before making any further deci-
sions. On the other hand, it noted, the investors
also submitted a Production Right Application
(PRA) to the Petroleum Agency of South Africa
(PASA) on November 15 on the basis of future
discoveries and the previous discovery at AJ-1.
“Therefore, the JV partners have time to
conduct further analysis and integration of the
Gazania-1 well data to allow them to determine
the next steps on the block,” the statement said.
Eco Atlantic and its partners have been using Crude oil was discovered at A-J1 in at Block 2B in 1988 (Image: Eco Atlantic)

South Africa hopes to revive Saudi-SA

oil refinery project in KwaZulu-Natal

SOUTH AFRICA SOUTH Africa’s Mineral Resources and Energy The Saudi-SA refinery project was ear-
Minister Gwede Mantashe says he hopes to per- marked for Richards Bay in KwaZulu-Natal
suade the state-owned Saudi oil giant Saudi (KZN) province in July 2018, when President
Aramco to revive plans for building a refinery Cyril Ramaphosa undertook his first state visit
in South Africa, News24 said on November 17. to the Middle Eastern country.

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