Gambia: Study Discovers 1.1 Billion Barrels Of Oil

Australian oil and gas explorer FAR Ltd said on Tuesday that an independent study of two of its offshore blocks in West Africa’s Gambia found potential for a total of 1.1 billion barrels of oil.

The company said 926 million barrels could be obtained on a net basis in the A2 and A5 blocks in the Mauritania-Senegal-Guinea-Bissau (MSGB) Basin, in which it has an 80 percent stake.

Operations are underway to prepare for drilling in late 2018, the company said in a statement.

An FAR unit signed a so-called farm-in deal with ERIN Energy Corp in March for the blocks, under which it will fund ERIN’s share of exploration costs up to $8 million.

FAR on its own is expected to bear $25 million to $30 million in exploration costs. The Gambian government approved the deal in early July.

In the region, FAR also shares Senegal’s first oil development, the deepwater SNE project, with Britain-listed Cairn Energy and Australia’s Woodside Petroleum . Production there is expected to start by 2021. (Reporting by Aaron Saldanha in Bengaluru; Editing by Joseph Radford)

Reuters

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