Gambia-l,
This article seems to indicate that there will soon be an oil exploration
in Gambia. Some years ago someone wrote here about the possibility of oil
and there was an article in either West Africa or New African magazine at
that time. I will try to see if I can find that message in the archives a
post it.

I say good luck hope that they find oil or gas that can be exploited.

Read on.



Fusion double act on an oil crusade

Upstream  20 June 2002
By Barry Morgan

Upstream head to head
Five years ago, two ambitious young geologists set up Fusion Oil &
Gas in Perth, Western Australia, to chase prospective African
upstream opportunities. Following a steady process of asset
consolidation across the co
ntinent, Alan Stein and Jonathan Taylor
shot to fame last month after snaring a preferential rights deal for
prized acreage off the disputed former Spanish colony of Western
Sahara.

Morocco lays claim to and currently occupies Western Shara, but
Fusion has signed up with the Sahrawi independence movement, the
Polisario Front, just three years after gaining an introduction from
the UK.

The deal sets Fusion directly at odds with big industry players
TotalFinaElf and Kerr-McGee, which have jointly contracted TGS-Nopec
to shoot seismic on behalf of the Moroccan government.
"It's a David and Goliath situation," says Stein, who describes
Fusion as "a pure exploration dream...now capitalised at £40 million
($59 million)".

Equity, including several operating interests, are spread throughout
Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, Gabon and Cameroon.
However, "Ghana didn
't work because we couldn't get funding in time
and had to pack a three-year work programme into six months," says
Stein.

Taylor agrees: "This is a crusade for true believers -- I'd love to
take acreage we've acquired in our own right and see results. Just
one discovery in countries like Gambia or Western Sahara could have
dramatic economic benefits and, yes, I'd love to think I'd been able
to change the GDP of an entire country."

Fusion will shortly tender for a seven-month 3D seismic job to
kick-off in August spanning Gambia, Cameroon and the joint zone
between Bissau and Senegal.
The company still has a 6% stake in Woodside Petroleum's Mauritanian
PSC-B, where three deep-water wells are slated from August following
the Chinguetti find.

"The presence of source rock off Western Sahara is proven by
Chinguetti and we have sufficient evidence of it extending across
the border, 2 says Taylor, the deal's principal architect.
"Oil companies are so often associated with rape and pillage, so
it's really refreshing to be involved in a deal which is morally
correct."

It all started in 1988 when Stein joined Peter Dolan's London
geophysical company, which later merged with minor player Ikon to
become Ikoda.

Stein then split to form Fusion, with Dolan as chairman, and began
trying to raise money on the Australian markets as technical
consultants to fund the transformation. Stein describes this as "a
pretty daunting task" but the friendship and financial support shown
by key client Charlie Morgan, managing director of Perth explorer
West Oil, "spurred us on and gave us confidence".

By 1997 the team was in talks with the Ghana National Petroleum
Corporation and also the Gambian government about opening up oil
patches in the country.

It was in the corridors o
f Gambia's Trade Ministry that Stein ran
into his old friend Taylor. "I'd just been chatting to him on the
phone so you can imagine my surprise when I saw him pop up again on
the African circuit."

Taylor used to run Clyde Petroleum's new ventures division Down
Under in the early 1990s.

Back in Australia, Stein and Morgan "strung me a line about a
company jet to fly me around west Africa and I fell for it", laughs
Taylor. "Besides, I felt it was time to take a few risks."

Stein regrets that "when the Asian financial flu finally hit Oz in
late '97, all the money dried up", so Taylor was persuaded "into
taking a retrenchment deal from Gulf Canada, relocating his heavily
pregnant wife to Perth and then financing himself for 10 months
without salary".

The consulting side funded Fusion's technical commitments through
1998 "but it was a tough year and hard yakka all round --
one desk,
one chair and no money for the light bill", stresses Stein.

Trying to raise funds in London during the oil-price doldrums was a
nightmare, he recalls. "We had an exploration company with no work
and an oil company with no money, and we sure were getting into deep
water."

At one point, muses Stein: "John said he'd spend his last few bucks
and take his family on holiday to Tasmania and then call it a day if
no progress was made. As for me, I had just enough on the credit
cards to get back to the UK." Then, at the 11th hour, in rode
Westmount Energy, which agreed to invest half a million Australian
dollars, keeping the dream afloat and providing the seed capital
Fusion needed to pay mounting bills in Africa.

"It was enough to secure our survival but I still had to personally
borrow on the strength of it to prevent escalating costs," recalls
Stein.

The second tu
rning point came in September 2000 when the company was
finally listed on the London Stock Exchange. "It was a nail-biting
time -- the first new oil and gas listing they'd had in
two-and-a-half years. After nine months of gruelling work, we were
both right down to the wire."

To celebrate, "we had lunch at a little place opposite Lloyds and
then went to sleep in utter relief".

The pair were able to trumpet their triumph just a few days later
over some bubbly organised at the annual Africa Upstream Conference
in Cape Town, "and that's why we've sponsored a champagne breakfast
at the Indaba ever since".

(c) Upstream 2002

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