Further Tullow drilling success

TULLOW Oil has encountered further drilling success in its assets off the coast of Ghana.

Drilling work on the Tweneboa-4 well successfully encountered what the company referred to as “gas condensate in good quality sandstone reservoirs”.

This is the final well to be drilled in the Irish-founded exploration company’s appraisal programme in the area.

Tullow owns a near 50% stake of the Deepwater Tano licence, which houses the well.

Chief executive Aidan Heavey said that the latest well marks “an important milestone” for the firm’s local drilling activity and will — along with testing from the nearby Enyenra field — “provide essential information on well deliverability, dynamic reservoir connectivity and hydrocarbon volumes, which will be used to optimise our development plans for these major fields”.

Tullow has previously indicated that the Enyenra field could be another milestone asset for its African portfolio of assets.

Mr Heavey added that Tullow is re-starting drilling activities at its EA-1 well in Uganda and is now gearing up for a five-rig drill-out campaign in the second half of this year.

Meanwhile, Tullow has paid the Ugandan Government $313m (approximately €216m) in disputed tax payments regarding its purchase of Heritage Oil’s interests in two blocks in the Lake Albert Rift Basin region of the country.

That payment leaves $141m outstanding, which will only be paid when Tullow completes the farm-down process of dividing the assets equally between itself and its two development partners in the project, Total of France and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.