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Oslo-listed international production and exploration company, Panoro Energy is in discussions with third parties about acquiring its 16 percent stake in the Aje oil, gas and condensate field in Nigeria.
According to international oil and gas media, Upstream, Panoro Energy is planning on selling its investment in the OML 113 oil field due to its high capital intensity, although the company remains objectively open for a farmout agreement.
Farmout is the assignment of part or all of an oil, natural gas or mineral interest to a third party for development. The interest may be in any agreed-upon form, such as exploration blocks or drilling acreage.
Panoro partook in the initial Aje expansion which targeted the field’s oil resources but, as a small company, it’s reluctant to invest in a future gas development that could cost about $400 million.
An email sent to the address found on the company’s website seeking comment on Monday went unreplied.
The proposed gas project could involve sending output to markets via the nearby West Africa Gas Pipeline (WAGP).
The Aje Field was discovered in 1997 in water depths ranging from 100-1,500m. Unlike the majority of Nigerian Fields which are productive from Tertiary age sandstones, Aje has multiple oil, gas and gas condensate reservoirs in the Turonian, Cenomanian and Albian age sandstones.
Five wells have been drilled to date on the Aje Field. Aje-1 and Aje-2 tested oil and gas condensate at high rates from the Turonian and Cenomanian reservoirs and Aje-4 confirmed the productivity of these reservoirs and discovered an additional deeper Albian age reservoir. Aje-5 was drilled in 2015 as a development well for the Cenomanian oil reservoir. The OML 113 license has full 3D seismic coverage from surveys acquired in 1997 and 2014.
In march 2014, federal government had approved Aje Field Development Plan (FDP) while in October 2014 the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the project was made. The FDP describes a development of the Aje Cenomanian oil reservoir via two subsea wells, the new Aje-5 well and a re-completed Aje-4 well, and a leased FPSO, the initial 2 wells have been in production since May 2016.
The Turonian gas condensate development phase is at the planning stage and will involved 3 or 4 wells producing over 500bcf of gas, 22MMbbls of condensate and 40MMbbls of LPG.
London based company, Panoro Energy holds high quality production, exploration and development assets in West Africa, namely the Dussafu License offshore southern Gabon, and OML 113 offshore western Nigeria.
