Vaalco Energy Inc. has agreed to acquire privately held Svenska Petroleum Exploration AB, through its owner Petroswede AB, for $66.5 million, expanding the company’s West African focus area, the company said in a release Feb. 29.
Svenska’s primary asset is a 27.39% non-operated working interest in the deepwater producing Baobab field in Block CI-40, 130 km offshore Ivory Coast in West Africa, operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (57.61% ). The national oil company, Petroci Holding, owns the remaining 15% interest.
In addition to the Block CI-40 interest, Svenska currently owns a 21.05% working interest in the early stage Uge discovery in the OML 145 concession offshore in Nigeria alongside partners ExxonMobil (21.05%), Chevron (21.05%), Oando (21.05%) and NPDC (15.80%). There are minimal commitments on this license interest and no drilling or development is currently planned.
Baobab field
Baobab field currently produces about 4,500 working interest boe/d (99% oil). The asset has been de-risked through development drilling (24 production wells, five injection wells) since its discovery in 2001, with production to date of about 150 MMboe on a gross basis.
Baobab lies in water depths of 900-1,000 m and consists of five distinguishable reservoir units in Middle to Late Albian sequences and holds an estimated 1 billion boe volumes initially in place. Commercial production began in August 2005.
The field is producing through nine subsea wells tied into a floating, producing, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO). The FPSO is scheduled to be taken offline in early 2025 for maintenance and upgrades to allow the vessel to continue to produce through the end of the expected extended field license in 2038. It is expected to return to production in 2026.
Development drilling is expected to begin in 2026 with additions to production from the main Baobab field, as well as potential future development of Kossipo field, also on the license, which has been appraised by two wells drilled in 2002 and 2019.
The deal is expected to close in this year’s second quarter, subject to customary closing conditions and receipt of necessary approvals.