Ophir books $310 million Fortuna FLNG charge

For Illustration purposes only (Image courtesy of Ophir Energy)

London-based Ophir Energy said on Thursday it has written down the value of its Fortuna FLNG project in Equatorial Guinea by $310 million.

For Illustration purposes only (Image courtesy of Ophir Energy)

The company also said in its half-year report it aims to cut jobs in London and plans to move its headquarters to Asia to lower costs.

The Fortuna development suffered a setback in the first half of this year with the dissolution of OneLNG and the subsequent withdrawal of Schlumberger from the Fortuna project.

“We continue to work to realise value for shareholders whilst we are in possession of the licence. Given the uncertainty around the value we can ultimately realise from Fortuna, we have impaired the asset to a carrying value of $300 million held on our balance sheet at the period-end,” said Alan Booth, Interim CEO of Ophir.

The Fortuna FLNG development is one of Africa’s first FLNG projects, however, a final investment decision on the long-stalled development has still not been made.

Fortuna sits within the Block R licence, offshore Equatorial Guinea which is located in the south-eastern part of the Niger Delta complex.

There is a total of 3.0 Tcf of independently certified 2C contingent resource and another 0.7 Tcf of low risk prospective resource in Block R making a total of 3.7 Tcf, according to Ophir.