Hi there Walk, This was all largely predicable. Back in March, I...

Hi there Walk,

This was all largely predicable. Back in March, I 'speculated'...

"Macky's Sall's younger brother late last year got tossed from one of Whacko Frank Timmis's corporate governance abuse vehicles, Petro Tim. While Petro Tim has nothing to do with The Gambia, Frank still controls African Petroleum (another victim of corporate abuse) who is sitting on the very sexy A1 acreage to the immediate west of FAR's new Gambia farm-in and is also desperate for a farm-out and contract extension. Frank represents what was bad about the old Gambia administration and will, in my opinion, be lucky to survive.

The New administration of The Gambia is headed by Adama Barrow who got a lot of help from Sall to enable him to take over from the then resident depot, Jammeh. Timmis no longer has a political friend in Senegal (he screwed up with Sall's family) or The Gambia. Now... FAR would not have got the ERIN farm-in without some 'cross-talk' between Barrow and his new "brother" and new best mate, Sall so....
Favours are, in traditional African fashion, being called and returned.

....peering further down the vortex of bullsh*t speculation, I'd be surprised if FAR/CNOOC aren't also positioning themselves, as the anointed preferred first movers in The Gambia's new energy/political regime, to be in the front seats for African Petroleum's up-coming farm-out in The Gambia. (I would, however, be incredibly wary of any dealings with the corporately diseased Timmis group)."

Ok, so APCL is out. It would not surprise me if something happens very soon with the 'bidding' for these newly available blocks. Yet I doubt (unfortunately) FAR will be a material player in the bidding/results for A1 and A4, if at all. Fact is, they simply don't, at this stage, have the resources to go into a separate deep block. I also believe it'll better serve both Senegal and The Gambia if there are a few other Big Oil coys involved. Competitive interest and all that.

But I'm incredibly excited by FAR's Gambia asset. I believe it has the potential to add more value than SNE to the SP. FAR's expertise is within the geophysics. They have an amazingly good technical handle on the local seismic interpretation. With all the physical data they have from nearby SNE, their ability to accurately calculate the Time/Depth migration and interpret the 500+mmbbl Suma prospect would be incredibly high.

Nothing in interpretive science is assured, yet this'll be just about as close as one could get.

I recon FAR's geoscientists have volunteered, no begged, to be locked in a room full of processors churning through the Suma data. It is incredibly rare and helpful to both accuracy and time of interpretation that they already know what inputs to use and what to look out for.
They'll be like kids at a Wiggles concert!

CN hinted at the possible F/O terms for Sama when she recently quoted US$2.3m/% point as the last leg of the SNE F/O to COP. It would not surprise me, once FAR have demonstrated the interpretation, that she aims for at least $3m/% point. Lets say 2 wells for US$75m for 25%. Heck, they may only need 1 well! ;-)

Go The Gambia!

Cheers,