Gabon: Oil Production To Increase As Vaalco Begins Drilling Campaign In September

Oil and gas company Vaalco Energy has announced plans to start its drilling campaign offshore Gabon next month. 

According to Vaalco Energy, Vantage Drilling has served notice that it expects to release the Topaz Driller jack-up rig to Vaalco in early September following completion of Eni’s Gabon drilling operations.

The start of the drilling campaign follows a successful full-field maintenance shut down at four of Vaalco’s platforms in the Etame Marin license, which has since returned to its pre-shutdown production levels, and the extension of Vaalco’s lease contract for the Petroleo Nautipa floating, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) to September 2021, a statement copied to energy energynewsafrica.com by APO Group said.

The FPSO has a capacity to process 25,000 barrels per day from the Etame, Ebouri, Avouma, South Tchibala, North Tchibala and South-east Etame fields.

The five-well drilling campaign will begin with the Etame 9P appraisal well and follow with the 9H development well from the Etame platform.

“Our current plans are to drill up to three development wells and two appraisal wellbores funded from cash on hand and cash generated from operations,”  Chief Executive Cary Bounds,” said.

Vaalco estimates a net drilling budget of $20 million to $25 million this year and $5 million to $10 million in 2020. Further, the Gabon-focused firm said it believes that the two appraisal wells may confirm up to up to “five million net barrels of 2P oil reserves spread across six well locations targeted in future drilling campaigns.”

With proven oil reserves of 2.5 billion barrels, Gabon is one of the more established hydrocarbons producers in the Gulf of Guinea.

Meanwhile, Gabon’s Minister of Petroleum, Gas and Hydrocarbons, H.E Noel Mboumba, and a large ministerial delegation will join a powerful line-up of African petroleum industry decision-makers at the Africa Oil & Power (AOP) conference.

This year, the AOP program will feature the participation of H.E. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal; H.E. Adama Barrow, President of Gambia; H.E Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, South Africa; H.E. Diamantino Azevedo, Minister of Mining and Petroleum, Angola; H.E. Gabriel M. Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines & Hydrocarbons of Equatorial Guinea; H.E. Mouhamadou Makhtar Cisse, Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Senegal; H.E. Mahaman Laouan Gaya, Secretary General, APPO; H.E. Awow Daniel Chuang, Minister of Petroleum of South Sudan and H.E. Abdoulaye Magassouba, Minister of Mines and Geology of the Republic of Guinea.

Source: www. energynewsafrica.com