A farm out agreement has been executed by Canadian oil and gas exploration company ECO Atlantic and its subsidiary Azinam limited for the purchase of an additional 6.25 percent participating stake in block 3b/4b offshore South Africa.
The $10 million deal will increase eco atlantic’s participating interest in block 3b/4b to 26.25 percent, subject to clearance from the South African government and other relevant parties.
The African Energy Chamber (AEC), the voice of the african energy sector, strongly supports the farm out agreement and hails the deal as a game changer for South Africa as south africa, Namibia, and the african continent at large focus on boosting investment in energy developments through improved partnerships with international independents like ECO Atlantic.
A new age of exploration and production in Africa can only be possible thanks to accords like these at a time when the continent’s untapped resources hold the key to solving the global energy problem.
The agreement itself puts ECO Atlantic in the lead for African frontier exploration.
Block 3b/4b, which spans an area of around 17,581 km2 and is situated between 120 and 250 km offshore South Africa in the orange basin, is located in water that is between 300 and 2500 meters deep.
The ECO Atlantic deal represents a positive development towards the discovery of other sizable reserves in the orange basin and will be crucial for South Africa as the country looks to reawaken its own hydrocarbon market given the basin’s proximity to recent significant discoveries such as those made by Shell in graff-1 and TotalEnergies in venus in neighboring Namibia in february 2022.
We are seeing growing industry interest in the entire orange basin and in particular in block 3b/4b, so we are very happy to have been able to increase our wi on the block, according to gil holzman, co-founder and CEO of ECO Atlantic and one of the top industry executives taking part in upstream discussions during African Energy Week (aew) 2022.
We are collaborating closely with our partners to advance the technical work needed to evaluate and identify drilling prospects and high grade leads for a drilling campaign we are considering for the following year.
Reprocessing the 3D seismic data we have for the block is part of this undertaking. we anticipate an exciting few months and look forward to informing our stakeholders as we prepare to spud the gazania-1 well on block 2b, offshore South Africa, at the beginning of september 2022.
Reprocessing 3D seismic scans in the block is being done by eco atlantic, in collaboration with its partners africa oil corp (20%) and ricocure (53.75%), in order to generate high-quality leads for locating drilling prospects in anticipation of a possible drilling campaign in 2023.
The deal between eco atlantic and major firms like Shell, Kosmos Energy, TotalEnergies, and Anadarko ushers in a new era of enhanced exploration, collaboration, and competition that is necessary and beneficial for fostering the expansion of Southern Africa’s oil and gas market.
“We are bullish about eco atlantic for its ongoing commitment to exploring South Africa’s offshore basins. with deep water oil and gas projects holding the key for Africa to address energy poverty, industrialization and kickstart production, particularly as legacy projects in producing countries diminish, ECO Atlantic is well positioned and committed to supporting Africa to make energy poverty history through the exploitation of domestic resources,” states nj Ayuk, executive chairman of the AEC, adding that, “We hope to see more deals such as this signed at the continent’s premier event for the oil and gas industry, an event that positions oil and gas at the center of africa’s energy sector revolution.”
In addition to providing updates on the company’s activities in africa, including the acquisition of block 3b/4b, Holzman will discuss ECO Atlantic’s future exploration and production plans in namibia and South Africa’s hydrocarbon-rich basins at AEW 2022. In high-level panel discussions and forums at AEW 2022, ECO Atlantic will be a part of a discussion about the role of independents in boosting upstream activities and investments throughout Africa’s oil and gas industry.