Ghana: Tap Gets Drilling Deadline Extension

Australia’s independent oil and gas exploration and production company Tap Oil on Friday announced that the Ministry of Energy, Ghana granted a one year extension of the Initial Exploration Period under the Petroleum Agreement in respect of the Offshore Accra Contract Area.

Under the extension, the Perth headquartered operator must drill the commitment well until September 23, 2013 when the Initial Exploration period ends.

New 3D seismic was acquired over the deepwater part of the Contract Area in early 2011. Interpretation of the data at hand indicates multiple large prospects within both the post-rift Upper Cretaceous fan sands (the same play type as Jubilee) and pre-rift Lower Cretaceous rotated fault blocks (the same play type as the Espoir and Baobab oil fields). To date several prospects and leads have been mapped and have unrisked prospective resources of greater than 3 billion barrels.

It is anticipated that the commitment well will likely target a large, deepwater, Jubilee look-a-like trap with prospective resources in the range of half a billion barrels. Well planning is in progress with various rig options currently being investigated.

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Offshore Energy Today Staff, May 13, 2012