Tullow Oil strikes again in Africa

TULLOW OIL, the Irish-founded oil and gas exploration company, has kept up its steady stream of positive news ahead of its interim results next month, by announcing a further significant oil find in one of its African bases.

Yesterday, the company said it had found “a significant column of excellent quality light oil” at its Owo-1 exploration well off the coast of Ghana. It added that the well – which forms part of the Deepwater Tano exploration licence, of which Tullow owns nearly 50% – has now been established as “a major new oil field requiring further appraisal”.

Tullow’s exploration director Angus McCoss said: “Given this success, we are immediately drilling an appraisal sidetrack to further assess the size of this find. Accelerated appraisal drilling will now focus on maturing the resources in both Owo and the adjacent Tweneboa accumulation towards commercialisation,” he added.

That appraisal dig will give a real idea as to the combined capacity of Owo and Tweneboa, which is Tullow’s next biggest interest in Ghana behind the Jubilee field.

Market analysts are currently estimating that Tweneboa (including the Owo well) could have a capacity of 1.4 billion barrels of oil. Capacity is thought, at the moment, to be around 400 million barrels and Owo is hoped to add another 600 million after appraisal in the coming weeks and months.

Less than a fortnight ago, Tullow announced the finding of oil at one of its Ugandan-based wells.

Also this month, Tullow received conditional formal approval from the Ugandan government for its purchase of the 50% stakes in two licences – previously owned by Heritage Oil – in the Kasamene oil field in the Lake Albert Rift basin.

The company also said that its first-half revenue is likely to amount to around $495m (€392m), with a general increase in world commodity prices boosting turnover. Last year’s interim revenue was $438m.

Meanwhile, Irish exploration company Petroceltic yesterday said it had signed a rig contract for a four-well appraisal programme to begin at its Algerian operations in October. Last week, it said it had commenced drilling activity in Tunisia.

Tullow saw its share price rise by 64c to €14.76 yesterday, while Petroceltic remained static at 13c.