By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 23 – A subsidiary of African Petroleum Corp. Ltd., Perth, took a farmout to acquire from Buried Hill Gambia BV a 60% equity interest in two exploration licenses off Gambia.
African Petroleum will become operator and pay 80% of forward costs from execution of the agreement to the end of the first exploration period, which the government has extended until Dec. 31, 2013.
The Alhamdulilah License Block A1 and License Block A4 cover a combined 2,668 sq km on which more than 20 prospects are identified in five play types, mainly in Lower Cretaceous. The work program includes a 3D seismic survey, the drilling of the first exploratory well, and all other operating and technical support costs.
If the exploration period is mutually extended beyond 2013 on either block, African Petroleum Gambia must pay 60% of Buried Hill’s past costs of $22.9 million.
The Alhamdulilah structure is a four-way dip-closed structure with five stacked reservoir units. The structure covers 24 sq km over five mapped reservoirs with a gross thickness of 1,000 m and a potential resource range of 560 million-1 billion bbl.
Other play types include stratigraphically-trapped fans and slope channel complexes of Turonian-Campanian age, Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous karstified reef build-ups and four-way closures, and eroded shelf clastics onlapping the shelf edge.