more ammo

Dominion offshore tanzania are sprouting farmin approaches prior to commencement of their 3D seismic work. The ORG/PCL project is at least twelve months ahead of this with seismic & evaluation nearing completion. Any company wishing to get a flying start in East Africa must surely be looking seriously at L8's potential.

Dominion plans Tanzania farm-out
Oil explorer Dominion Petroleum said it has received approaches from oil players looking to partner with it on its licence offshore Tanzania as the hunt for oil in largely unexplored East Africa shows no sign of abating.

News wires 20 September 2010 17:24 GMT


Dominion, which holds 100% of Block 7, an area in the sea off northern Tanzania, is the only small company to operate a licence in a region otherwise dominated by oil giants including Shell , Eni and Anadarko .

"People have come to us and we have said... once we have the 3D we will be happy to engage you," boss Andrew Cochran said in an interview with Reuters.

Interest in offshore East Africa has been hotting up since Anadarko made a major gas discovery off the coast of Mozambique in February.

US supermajor ExxonMobil and British group BG , for example, both farmed in to blocks offshore Tanzania earlier this year.

"People who are already exposed to the play, logically would have spoken to us," said Cochran, when asked to name the companies who had approached Dominion about farming in to Block 7.

Cochran said a successful result for BG, which on Friday said a rig had been mobilised to drill the first well on one of its Tanzanian blocks, would make Dominion's licence even more attractive to other oil companies.

With a market capitalisation of around 54 million pounds ($84 million), Cochran said Dominion always planned to bring in a partner via a farm-in process to take over the operatorship of the licence.

"I'd tell you this even before the incident in the Gulf of Mexico, small companies like us have no business operating in deep water," he said, explaining that on top of the increased risk, the cost of hiring a rig suitable for deep-water drilling can be prohibitive for smaller companies.

Cochran said that Dominion intended to wait until the 3D seismic survey was complete, expected in early next year, before striking a farm-in deal, adding that it aimed to drill a well on Block 7 at some point in the second half of next year.

No Bear this morning so My Opinion only
Cheers
Pickle