Dominion Petroleum (LON:DPL) provided a positive update for its assets in Africa. Notably a Competent Persons Report (CPR) on the wholly owned Tanzania Deep Water Block 7 confirmed a mean prospective resource of 1.1 billion barrels (Bbbl) as the oil case, and 7 trillion cubic feet for (Tcf) gas.
“The CPR on Alpha independently confirms Block 7's highly prospective geology and we are very excited about progressing our work on all prospects and leads so far identified in the block," chief executive Andrew Cochran said.
"Deepwater East Africa is seeing greatly increased attention and activity from the oil & gas sector and Block 7 is squarely in the middle of that focus.”
Dominion has now begun a 1,000km2 3D seismic survey on Block 7.
The company said that the 3D Survey will take two months to acquire, and another two to three months to process, interpret and analyse. The survey results should help Dominion re-assess volumes and improve chances of success (CoS) for the principle prospect, Alpha, as well as the other prospects in and around the survey area.
The survey will support AVO (amplitude variations with offset) studies down to the deepest objectives. Dominion highlighted that the initial AVO work, which has already been performed on existing 2D seismic data has been very encouraging, and it identifying numerous positive indications.
According to Dominion the project is benefiting from external drilling operations in the East Africa region.
Since the CPR was initiated, drilling in deepwater East Africa has proven some elements of the Alpha play concept.”
“In particular, both the pre-tertiary (i.e. Cretaceous) and the oil potential of the East African Margin as a whole have been de-risked,” the company stated.
The CPR, which was carried out by Energy Resource Consultants, has risked Block 7’s Alpha prospect with a 12% CoS overall (individually, the various objectives within Alpha are estimated to have a CoS of between 9% and15%).
Dominion said it is watching the current drilling in the region closely, and factor the information into its analyses of Block 7.
Elsewhere onshore Tanzania, the Kianika-1 well is currently being drilled by Dominion’s partner Les Establissment Maurel et Prom (M&P).
The company has a 10% interest in the well, which is currently being drilled at around 1,690 metres.
Aside from Block 7, the company’s other key project are focused on the Lake Edward Basin.
“We always saw the Lake Edward area as a single basin, straddling two countries,” Cochran said. The company’s interest in the basin is split between its wholly-owned ‘Uganda Exploration Area 4B’ and a 46.75% stake in the DRC Block 5.
The PSA (Production Sharing Agreement) for Block 5 has now been formally ratified by the DRC government, and the company is moving ahead with further exploration work across both project areas.
“Now that we have the PSA formally ratified in the DRC, we are well placed to continue the exploration of the basin as a whole and, following the upcoming seismic,” Cochran added.
“We will rank all prospects and leads on a basin-wide basis to decide where best to drill next."
The seismic exploration work will total between 300km - 500km of 2D acquisition across both countries.
In the summer Dominion completed the first ever well in the basin, Ngaji-1 (in Block 4B) confirmed the presence of excellent quality reservoir sands however it was plugged and abandoned as a ‘dry hole with gas shows’.
Dominion emphasised that the well provided valuable geological data, and finding quality reservoir sands satisfied ‘one of the biggest pre-drill risks’.