Page 12 - AfrOil Week 27

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

Aminex, ARA Petroleum move closer

to finalising farm-out deal in Tanzania

SENEGAL ARA Petroleum (Oman) is one step closer to the transfer.
assuming operatorship of the Ruvuma project In the meantime, Aminex said, ARA has
in Tanzania. agreed not to demand repayment of principal
According to a statement from Solo Oil or interest on the $3mn funding arrangement
(UK), a non-operating shareholder in the pro- that it provided in November 2019. Aminex has
ject, Tanzania’s Ministry of Energy has formally already used $2.67mn of this sum, and ARA was
agreed to extend the exploration licence for due to start charging interest as of July 1, 2020.
Ruvuma, which is currently being operated The UK-based company has been developing
by Aminex (UK). This move gives Aminex Ruvuma under a production-sharing agreement
and ARA the time they need to conclude the (PSA). It has already discovered gas at Ntorya
farm-out agreement between their subsidiaries and believes the field may hold as much as 763bn
Ndovu Resources and ARA Petroleum Tanza- cubic feet (21.607bn cubic metres) in recovera-
nia, the statement said. ble reserves. ™
The ministry’s decision pushes the parties’
deadline for upholding the terms of the farm-
out deal back from June 30 to July 14, Aminex
explained in a separate statement. The company
said it was now working with ARA and the gov-
ernment of Tanzania with the intent of finalising
the agreement as soon as possible.
Once the transaction is finished, the parties
to the farm-out deal will be able to begin install-
ing ARA as operator of the Ruvuma project,
within the framework of the existing joint oper-
ating agreement (JOA). Solo Oil said it looked
forward to seeing this process completed, as it
would allow the Omani company to lead devel-
opment work at Ntorya, a gas field within the
Mtwara section of the Ruvuma licence area.
Aminex struck a more cautious note, saying
it had no guarantee that Tanzanian authorities
would approve the farm-out agreement. It also
pointed out, though, that it would become liable
on July 1 to repay the $2mn loan it had received
from ARA to cover its tax obligations to the
Tanzanian government, which has requested
payment of capital gains tax in anticipation of Ntorya lies within the Mtwara section of Ruvuma (Image: Aminex)

POLICY
Libya’s Mesla oilfield back online

NOC subsidiary says production from the field will be delivered to 10,000 bpd Sarir refinery

LIBYA AGOCO, a subsidiary of Libya’s National Oil field, Mesla was restarted on June 30. The engi-
Corp. (NOC), has reportedly resumed produc- neer did not say how much crude the site was
tion at Mesla, an oilfield in the eastern part of producing, but he did tell Argus Media last
the country that has been offline for almost six week that Agoco was sending all of its crude to
months. the 10,000 barrel per day (bpd) Sarir refinery for
According to an engineer working at the processing.

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 27 08•July•2020