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Once the OPEC+ group lifts its output quotas, Delta. “There [is] still potential in the ultra-deep
he said, the country hopes to see yields rise to Niger Delta, which has very little exploration,”
3mn barrels per day (bpd) or more. NNPC has he remarked. ™
already designated certain assets that can help
lift oil production to this level by 2023, he added,
without elaborating.
He went on to say that NNPC was also look-
ing to increase its crude oil reserves to 40bn bar-
rels. To achieve this aim, he said, the company
will expand its exploration programme beyond
the Niger River Delta to frontier basins, where
it has recently made a number of commercially
viable discoveries.
“Our ambition is to grow to 40bn barrels
of proven reserves and increase [natural and
associated] gas assets,” he was quoted as saying
by This Day. “To do this, you have to go to the
frontier areas, and there are a number of them.
Currently, we have found one in Benue trough
with substantial quantity. This has also led us
to understand the area and see the vast poten-
tial elsewhere in the frontier basin. And we are
doing some exploration work and seismic data
work in those areas.”
The NNPC chief also stressed, though, that
his company would not ignore the Niger River Oil and gas have been found in the Upper Benue Trough (Image: Lyell Collection)

Kosmos Energy finalises sale of African

and South American assets to Shell

REGIONAL US-BASED Kosmos Energy reported last week expects to drill exploration wells in three of the
that it had finalised a farm-down deal involving four countries listed above in 2021. It did not say
assets in Africa and South America with Royal last week how the farm-down would affect those
Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands). plans, but it did confirm that it still planned to
In a statement dated December 10, Kos- use the proceeds of the deal to reduce its debt
mos said it had closed the transaction with burden and fund exploration work in the US
Dordtsche Petroleum Maatschappij, a ful- Gulf of Mexico.
ly-owned subsidiary of Shell, in line with the
terms of an agreement signed in September of
this year. As a result, the Shell affiliate is now set
to acquire all of the US company’s participating
interests in blocks located off the coast of São
Tomé and Príncipe, Namibia and Suriname. It
will also take control of Kosmos’ South African
assets next year.
Kosmos has estimated the total value of
the farm-down deal at nearly $200mn. In its
statement, it said that Dordtsche Petroleum
Maatschappij would pay “approximately
$95mn, plus future contingent payments of up
to $100mn,” for the assets involved.
The statement did not name the blocks slated
for transfer to the Shell subsidiary. According to
its website, Kosmos holds stakes in Blocks 5, 6,
10, 11, 12 and 13 offshore São Tomé & Príncipe;
in Block 39 offshore Namibia; in Northern Cape
Ultra-Deep Block offshore South Africa, and in
Blocks 42 and 45 offshore Suriname.
The company has reported previously that it Kosmos has assets in Suriname and several African states (Image: Kosmos Energy)

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 50 16•December•2020