Eco (Atlantic) Oil & Gas Ltd. (AIM: ECO, TSX-V:EOG), is delighted to announce that ONGC Videsh, through its wholly owned subsidiary ONGC Videsh Vankorneft Pte. Ltd. (“OVVL”), has entered into agreement with Tullow Namibia Limited (“Tullow”) whereby OVVL will acquire a 15% working interest in the Cooper Block (Namibia Petroleum Exploration License 0030 for Block 2012A) (the “Cooper Licence”), offshore Namibia.
The acquisition is subject to satisfaction of customary conditions precedent, including Namibian regulatory and joint venture partners approvals as well as the grant of a twelve month extension to the First Renewal Exploration Period by the Namibian regulatory authority.
The working interests in the Cooper Block following the acquisition by OVVL will be:
The acquisition is subject to satisfaction of customary conditions precedent, including Namibian regulatory and joint venture partners approvals as well as the grant of a twelve month extension to the First Renewal Exploration Period by the Namibian regulatory authority.
The working interests in the Cooper Block following the acquisition by OVVL will be:
- Eco Atlantic (Operator): 32.5%
- NAMCOR (the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia): 10%
- AziNam Ltd: 32.5%
- Tullow Oil: 10%*
- OVVL: 15%
The Cooper License is currently within the ‘First Renewal Exploration Period’ under the terms of the licence and the joint venture partners are continuously carrying out data evaluation to identify an exact drill location. Eco also recently announced, on 2 November 2017, that it had released its Public Notice for Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) for Drilling an exploration well within its Osprey Lead on the Cooper Block.
The Osprey lead, is in approximately 500 meters of water. Eco has completed the interpretation of several thousand kilometers of 2D seismic as well as completing a 1,100 kilometer 3D Survey, carried out by PGS Geophysical, across the lead. Eco Atlantic has also contracted Tullow’s Exploration team, which has extensive expertise in these types of fan plays which are similar to the Jubilee Field in Ghana, to oversee processing and conduct the initial interpretation for the block partners. Additionally, each of the partners, whose teams have evaluated the data, all concur that there is a highly justifiable lead and an exact drilling location is being defined.
Eco has recently filed a NI51-101 Compliant report by Gustavson Associates that reported 882 Million Barrels (BOE) of Oil (Gross Prospective - Best) resources on the Block. The Company intends to further define an exact drilling location and to move the project ahead through to a drilling decision.
Eco are also pleased to announce that the Company and its respective partners have received and accepted a 12 month extension for the first renewal period (from March 2018 to March 2019) for all three Blocks – PEL 0030 “Cooper”, PEL 0033 “Sharon” and PEL 0034 “Guy”. This was granted by the Ministry of Mines and Energy on October 16th 2017.
Gil Holzman, President and CEO of Eco commented:
“This is a further endorsement of Eco’s strategy and the quality of the acreage that we have in our portfolio. This is ONGC Videsh’s second foray into Namibia and we are delighted, on the satisfaction of the conditions precedent, that they have decided to enter the Cooper Block. They are an excellent partner with considerable expertise and a strategy of adding high - quality exploration and production assets to its existing E&P portfolio. Obviously this deal bears the potential to expedite the first exploration well on Cooper Block, as all the partners are now lined up and the financial burdens are spread.
“We look forward to working with them as we accelerate the work programme on this license and further define the exact drilling location.”