TransGlobe: Branching out...back to roots

This week saw Canadian listed, Egyptian focussed TransGlobe ‎announce an acquisition of producing assets in Western Canada. The company will be paying USD80 million to Bellatrix Exploration for Cardium light oil and Mannville liquid-rich gas acreage in the Harmattan Area. The portfolio comes with 21mmboe of 2P reserves and 3,100boepd of production. The acquisition is a shift away from the company's ‎historic strategy of being an Egyptian focussed player. However this had been pre-announced with TransGlobe stating earlier this year that it was...

Read More

International Petroleum Investment Company: A fresh start

IPIC has been on a journey to rebuild its business following the extraordinary downfall of Khadem al-Qubaisi, the company’s managing director who was made to step down in April 2015. In the months that followed, there was a major shakeup across all levels of the organisation including in the portfolio companies, with many of the roles previously held by al-Qubaisi reassigned to new officers. At the time, IPIC did not release any statements around...

Read More

Oda to Joy!

On 30th November, Centrica announced that it had submitted the Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) for the Oda field to the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Oda, previously called Butch, is owned by the following partners: Centrica (40% operator) Suncor (30%) Aker BP (15%) Faroe (15%) Oda is an oil field, discovered in 2011 and lies in the Norwegian North Sea. The field will be developed as a subsea tie-back to the Ula patform,...

Read More

Siccar Point is building up its business

OGInsights recently caught up with the Siccar Point team following its successful acquisition of the OMV North Sea business, which includes an 11.8% stake in the flagship Schiehallion oil field. Together with the acquisition of a stake in the Mariner field earlier this year, Siccar Point has now built up a North Sea business of relevant scale. Siccar Point is a North Sea focussed E&P, with financial backing from Blackstone, Blue Water Energy...

Read More

Not so Stella

Following Ithaca’s recent update on Stella, it has now announced that there will be a short delay to first production with the operation coming on stream in January. The offshore commissioning of the FPF-1 platform is well advanced and continues. However during routine inspections, faults were found on a number of electrical junction boxes on the vessels processing facilities. Repairs are now underway but this will delay field start up. The repair costs are expected to be immaterial....

Read More

Near-term appraisal for FAR

FAR has announced that the partners of the SNE field have contracted the Stena DrillMax for a minimum two well programme starting in Q2 2017. The ship is currently in the Canary Islands and ready to be deployed with crew assembled. The two firm wells, SNE-5 and SNE-6, will target the upper reservoir units and will include drill stem testing and likely an interference test between SNE-3 and SNE-5. The programme aims to firm up the resource base to help scope and refine the field development plan. It is noted that the new rig has been contracted...

Read More

Eland's OML40 ready to ramp up

Eland this morning reported impressive test results from the Opuama-3 well on OML 40. The Long and Short Strings tested at 5,955bopd and 5,067bopd, respectively, and no water. Management now expects Opuama-3 and Opuama-1 to generate gross output to ~14,500bopd. Unfortunately, OML 40 remains shut in as a result of interruptions to third party export facilities. In light of these export issues, the company intends to accelerate plans to barge crude,...

Read More