West Oil ties up Gambia options

08.05.1999


PERTH-based explorer West Oil was set to sign a deal this week to firm up
options on deep-water acreage off Gambia and tighten its grip on similar
tracts held jointly by Senegal and Guinea-Bissau, writes Barry Morgan.


West's partner, the West Australian geophysical consultant Ikoda, has
finalised studies of structural leads in the Joint Development Zone and
sources said the deep-water prospects off Gambia might also tempt the
Australians into a production-sharing agreement with the government in
Banjul. West Oil and Western Geophysical will make submissions on the
Senegal-Bissau play once the countries have ratified block demarcations.
The Gambian option may emerge sooner since outline terms were pre-
negotiated, a company source said. The original agreement specifically
foresaw a licence application for more than half of the 4110 square-kilometre
area studied but Banjul later cut down the area. West now hopes that
Gambia's Commissioner for Exploration, Kabar Jawara, will allow it to licence
the area outlined in the original deal. Deep-water data was compiled by Ikoda
for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Employment, including mesozoic-
cenozoic sedimentary infill and tying in old data and work done on the
Jammah-1 well drilled 20 years ago. Viable reservoir horizons have been
affirmed on shelf-edge carbonate features while intra-slope Senonian
prospectivity is significant in water depths less than 1000 metres , said
Ikoda. The report highlighted a potential shelf-edge structural closure dubbed
G9 and higher risk stratigraphic plays along the paleoslope . Satellite radar
revealed anomalies that form a distinctive alignment in the deep water and
may represent natural hydrocarbon seepages . There is potential for
significant quantities of oil and gas.


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West mulling Gambia play


01.05.1999


PERTH-based West Oil is presently studying leads thrown up offshore
Gambia following data reprocessing over the patch covered by a technical co-
operation agreement signed nine months ago.


Ministry officials are hopeful sufficient incentives exist for West, in
partnership with compatriot geophysical consultant Ikoda, to convert the
accord into a fully fledged production sharing contract. We have enough
encouragement to justify moving to the next stage of exploration activity, said
a spokesman for UK-based equity partner Fusion Investments, but we have
no formal forward programme. West is also mulling options on acreage
surrounding the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation's North Tano field.
Gambian commissioner for exploration Kabar Jawara is expected in Accra
next week to promote his country's offshore assets at a conference on west
African oil prospects.

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