Oil & Gas Corporate News
Victoria Oil & Gas (BUY, £0.12) (VOG, 4.73p, ? (0.72%)) published interim results for the period ended 30 November 2010 and provided an update on operations. In Cameroon, the signature of the Exploitation Decree for the Logbaba Gas field is imminent. All other permits have been obtained and the installation of the gas pipeline from the field to industrial customers is ready to start once the Exploitation Decree is officially awarded. In Russia the gas tomography and passive seismic surveys concluded last year confirmed direct hydrocarbon indication in six accumulations. Preliminary integration of the new data with existing datasets including seismic and well data have highlighted several interesting leads for more detailed analysis and future drilling with probably two exploration/appraisal wells by the end of 2012. Drilling locations will be decided once seismic reprocessing and geological modelling are completed, which is expected to take 4 months and an additional 185 km of 2D seismic which will also be acquired this year. In addition, the Company is assessing ways of exploiting the well 103 discovery to generate cash. This work will incorporate the 2011 subsurface studies and data acquisition and conceptual development studies to evaluate various surface production facilities and downstream options for commercialising these reserves. Finally, the option to acquire Falcon Petroleum Limited which has assets in Mali and Ethiopia, has been extended and, having received the results of a third party evaluation of prospectivity and valuation, the Company is currently negotiating with the Directors of Falcon and expect to provide a further update to the market shortly.
Comment: The award of the Exploitation Decree is the main catalyst for the stock and the imminent signature by the President is excellent news. The award process has been excruciatingly slow and it has finally reached the stage of Presidential signature, meaning that all administrative obstacles have been overcome. We imagine that imminent could mean within a month or less. The Company has also carried out a fair amount of technical work in Russia and once the cash flows from Logbaba are coming in, the West Med project could really take off.
Bowleven (LON:BLVN) (BUY, £4.50) (BLVN, 335.5p, ? (2.52%)) announced that drilling has commenced on the Sapele-1 sidetrack (Sapele-1ST), Douala Basin, offshore Cameroon with the Noble Tommy Craighead jack-up rig. The principal objective of Sapele-1ST is to appraise the Deep…
