Sierra Leone’s Petroleum Directorate and African Petroleum agreed to extend the contract for ultra deep-water licences SL-03 and SL-4A-10 for the second time. They further agreed to alter the work schedule for both Licences in 3000-3600m water depth where there were prospects of Leo and Vega.
African Petroleum Company stated that during the period when the oil prices plummeted the industry experienced little interest in the deep water setting of the licences. However, despite the above limitation the company observed that the situation had changed due to improved technology, reduced production costs and good opportunities perceived on the licences.
According to the terms of the document signed, Licence SL-03 would run up 23 April 2019 whereas Licence SL-4A-10 was up to 17 September 2019. However, the Company stated that it would re-evaluate state-owned well and seismic data in order to reduce risks on the licences prior to committing resources for drilling exploration wells during the following 12 months.
Further, the provisions of the licence stipulated that African Petroleum had given away about half of SL-03 licence area from 1930sq km to 962 sq km and also about half of SL-4A-10 licence area from 1995sq km to 995sq km.
