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Archive -Seychelles

New partner joins in search for oil |16 April 2014

A new energy firm, Ophir Energy Plc, has teamed up with WHL Energy Ltd to explore oil in Seychelles waters.
To formalise this venture, an agreement was signed on Monday between the Seychelles government and Petroleum Seychelles and WHL Energy Ltd and Ophir Energy Plc.

Through this agreement, the Seychelles government is giving its consent for WHL Energy Ltd to partner with Ophir Energy Plc in the exploration.

The deal was signed by Vice-President Danny Faure, secretary of state for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Barry Faure, managing director of WHL Energy Ltd David Rowbottam and commercial director of Ophir Energy Plc Glenn Corrie.

Present at the signing ceremony were Alice England, legal counsel of Ophir Energy Plc and representatives from Petroleum Seychelles, WHL Energy Ltd, Ophir Energy Plc and the Attorney General’s Office.

“Through this agreement the Seychelles government and Petroleum Seychelles have approved an arrangement that WHL Energy Ltd, the company who has the contract in exploring oil in our waters, to bring in a new partner in this exploration to execute their licence,” Ambassador Faure said.

“The Seychelles government has recognised the effort of WHL Energy Ltd in gathering information in its exploration and upon its request in reinforcing its resources the Seychelles government has agreed that Ophir Energy Plc has the profile to add to the value that will bring success to the contract,” Ambassador Faure added.

WHL Energy Ltd is the company who took over the contract for oil exploration from Petrol Quest in October 2010 and its contract ended last year. With the signed agreement the Seychelles government has extended its contract for another three years.

“As of today Ophir will become the senior party of this venture; it has now acquire 75% interests in the joint venture going forward. Up until this period, WHL has been a 100% holder of this acreage but the signing of today’s agreement changes that and Ophir will become the operator of the joint venture,” Mr Rowbottam said.
“Ophir is a great choice for both our company and the country and we feel that Ophir can carry this project through to completion,” he added.

Ophir Energy plc is an African focused, upstream oil and gas exploration company which is listed on the London Stock exchange. Ophir has an extensive deep water acreage position in west and east Africa acquired since its foundation in 2004. (www.ophir-energy.com)

“We have been very successful in Tanzania as a company and in other parts of Africa, and we see this really as an extension of our position. As you may be aware there has been a fairly significant amount of hydrocarbon discovered in East Africa; and we are not promising that’s going to be the case in Seychelles but this is very much our territory,” Mr Corrie said.

“We do best when there is little amount of data and so hopefully we are going to come and acquire some 3D size in data and hopefully distinguish better the prospectivity of the region that we are exploring and hopefully view to drilling a well of a substation in the near future,” Mr Corrie added.

Ophir and WHL will take two to three months to acquire 3D size in data and then take six months to interpret the data.

 

 

 

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