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Friday, January 24, 2014
The force majeure on Cameroon’s Ntem Concession, declared in June 2005 due to a maritime border dispute between Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, has been lifted. Sterling Energy reported that while the maritime border dispute is still ongoing the JV partners, Sterling Cameroon and Murphy Cameroon Ntem Oil Co., have now agreed with SNH to formally lift the force majeure.
The lifting of the force majeure allows for exploration to finally commence on the concession. The current exploration period re-commenced January 22, with a minimum work obligation of one exploration well in the remaining 15 months.
In November 2011, Sterling signed a farm-out agreement with Murphy, under which Murphy was assigned a 50% working interest in, and operatorship of, the Ntem Concession. Sterling retained a 50% non-operated working interest. As part of the consideration for the farm out, Murphy will pay Sterling’s share of the costs for drilling the first well.
Murphy has contracted the Ocean Confidence drill ship which is being prepared for mobilization to the Ntem Concession. The Bamboo-1 well will be the first exploration well drilled on the concession. It is located in approximately 1,600 meters of water and will drill a series of vertically stacked, Cretaceous aged, submarine fans, defined using the extensive 3D seismic data set that covers more than 70% of the concession area. Sterling estimates that the primary objective may contain mean un-risked, gross prospective resources of 422 million barrels of oil and 170 billion cubic feet of gas, a total of some 450 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The Bamboo #1 well location is outside the disputed area subject to the maritime border claims of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea. The Bamboo-1 well is expected to spud in February.
Sterling Energy’s Executive Chairman, Alastair Beardsall, said: “We are very pleased to lift force majeure and commence the drilling of an exploration well on the highly prospective Ntem Concession; the Bamboo #1 well will target mean un-risked, gross prospective resource of some 450 million barrels. We are very excited to move forward with an exploration program on this highly prospective block.”
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