African Petroleum Extends Senegal Talks

Oslo-based African Petroleum (AP) says it has allowed six more weeks for talks on a farm-in to three promising Senegal and Gambian offshore licences.

The Kosmos-BP partnership has made a spate of gas discoveries offshore Senegal in the past two years, while Cairn has made multiple oil finds, all of which has excited interest in this offshore region, prompting China's CNOOC to take on a 65% interest in a cross-border offshore zone earlier this year.

AP, which is 21.4%-owned by Romania-Australian businessman Frank Timis, had previously announced a non-binding heads of terms and exclusivity agreement with an unidentified "well funded, listed oil and gas company with a strong track record in offshore deep-water drilling."

Now June 7, AP says it and the incoming party have been working together to finalise negotiations with the governments of Senegal and The Gambia, to continue due diligence and negotiate farm-in documentation.

"Whilst good progress has been made to date, the period of exclusivity.... has been extended for a further six weeks until 20 July 2017 in order to ensure there is adequate time to complete this process. The heads of terms and exclusivity agreement provide a framework for the incoming third party to secure a 70% operated interest in [AP’s] SOSP production sharing contract in Senegal and the A1 and A4 licences in The Gambia," AP said.

AP has interests in eight offshore licences in four West Africa countries (Senegal, The Gambia, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone), but it is contesting the handover last month by Senegal of one of these to Total. 

Mark Smedley