Lekoil gets consent for license farm-in off Nigeria

Nigeria’s Ministry of Petroleum Resources has given its consent to a wholly owned subsidiary of Lekoil Nigeria, Mayfair Assets and Trust Limited, for the 17.14% economic interest in OPL 310 off Nigeria which contains the Ogo discovery. 

Lekoil Limited holds 90% of the economic interests in its subsidiary, Lekoil Nigeria. The license operator and Lekoil’s local partner is Optimum Petroleum Development.

To remind, Mayfair farmed into Afren Oil & Gas’ interest in OPL 310 for a 17.14% participating interest and 30% economic interest in February 2013. In July 2015, Afren Plc, the parent company of Afren Oil & Gas that held interests in the OPL 310 license, was put into administration and its assets were put up for sale. To protect its interests in the license, Lekoil started discussions with the administrator of Afren Plc for the potential acquisition of its subsidiary interests in OPL 310.

In late November 2015, Lekoil entered into an agreement with the administrator of Afren Plc and Afren Nigeria Holding to acquire the shares of Afren Oil & Gas which held a 22.86 percent participating interest in OPL 310 for a total consideration of $13 million. Lekoil subsequently applied for ministerial consent for this interest.

On Tuesday, November 22, 2016, Optimum informed of the consent given by Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources to Mayfair. The ministry advised Mayfair to enter into an agreement with Optimum that will spell out the rights and obligations of the parties for the development of the license ‘without further delay’ considering its expiration date in 2018.

Lekoil confirmed the announcement made by Optimum and added the company was working with the regulatory agencies to clarify and amend the conditions stated in the consent letter to be in line with the Nigerian law.

The OPL 310 license is an upper cretaceous play in the West African Transform Margin. Most of the prospects are in water depths of 100 to 800 meters, where in 2013 included the successful drilling of an exploration well (Ogo-1) and its planned sidetrack (Ogo-1 ST). The block extends from the shallow water continental shelf near the city of Lagos extending to the deep-water.

According to the operator of the license, drilling of two appraisal wells and two exploration wells is expected to begin in early 2017. Appraisal wells will focus on prospects around the Ogo discovery that have been de-risked following the completion of seismic interpretation of multiple horizons.

Offshore Energy Today Staff