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Liberia
African Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Perth, has spudded the Narina-1 deepwater exploratory well on Block LB-09 in which the company has a 100% interest.
Narina-1 mainly targets a Turonian prospect similar to discoveries such as Jubilee off Ghana and Mercury and Venus off Sierra Leone.
African Petroleum drilled the first well in this previously untested frontier basin in 2011 with encouraging results. Apalis-1 went to 3,665 m in 988 m of water and proved a working hydrocarbon system.
Lithuania
Tethys Oil AB, Stockholm, has agreed with Odin Energi AS to acquire interests in Lithuanian oil companies UAB Minijos Nafta and UAB LL Investicos.
MN holds the Gargzdai license producing more than 700 b/d of 42° gravity oil from more than 6 million bbl of proved and probable reserves. LLI holds the Rietavas and Raiseiniai licenses with known oil deposits and large exploration upside. All licenses are onshore and cover a combined 4,000 sq km of the Baltic basin.
The interests will be held through Odin group companies, giving Tethys a net indirect interest of 25% in MN and 20% in LLI.
Together Tethys and Odin will have 50% of the shares in both MN and LLI. The remaining 50% of MN is owned by Lithuanian company Geonafta, part of the Polish Lotos group. The other 50% of LLI is owned by private interests.
Gargzdai covers 900 sq km in western Lithuania and has produced 15 million bbl from Cambrian sandstone reservoirs. Proved, probable, and possible reserves exceed 12 million bbl. A reservoir study suggests that the reserves could be greatly increased with the use of modern alternative oil recovery techniques. The license also holds major unconventional hydrocarbon potential, including exposure to Silurian-Ordovician shale sections.
Rietavas covers 1,600 sq km near Gargzdai with a known oil discovery in Cambrian sandstones. Rietavas is unexplored. Raiseiniai, with an areal extent of more than 1,500 sq km, covers an unexplored trend of Silurian reefs similar to, but expected to be of larger size, compared to the Ordovician reefs found on Gotland. The Silurian-Ordovician shale section is present also in Rietavas and Raiseiniai.
Mauritania
Total SA has signed exploration licenses with the Mauritanian government, one for an ultradeepwater block and one for an onshore block.
Total will hold 90% interest and Mauritania's state SMH 10% in offshore Block C 9 and Block Ta 29 in the Taoudeni basin.
C 9 covers more than 10,000 sq km 140 km off Mauritania in 2,500-3,000 m of water. Ta 29 is in the Sahara 1,000 km east of Nouakchott and is north of and on trend with Total's Block Ta 7, on which the company said the latest exploratory results show good prospectivity.
Niger
TVI Pacific Inc., Calgary, has withdrawn from the Tenere block in Niger in which it had participated in exploratory drilling with China National Petroleum Corp. Tenere.
TVI Pacific, which had a 20% carried interest in the first phase, chose not to participate in the second exploration phase of the block after analyzing final well data and reports from the Facai-1 exploratory well drilled in August 2011 in the Termit rift basin (OGJ Online, June 13, 2011).
On Aug. 30, 2011, TVI announced that it had plugged and abandoned the third and last exploratory well of a three-well carried program in the block. Facai-1, drilled by operator CNPCIT, encountered two small gas shows during drilling, but wireline logs indicated there were no zones worth testing.
