Finding big oil fields in East Africa
..onshore, yes, but are there any offshore?!
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Peter Evans
» Group Head of Operations Geology
» Tullow Oil
Full Agenda
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
London
The Geological Society
Huge amounts of gas have been discovered offshore East Africa, mainly in Mocambique, then Tanzania and this month in Kenya.
We will wait to see if and when this gas can be moved economically to market, given the plentiful amounts of gas being found globally and the potential for shale gas to be exported as LNG from the USA.
Imminent high value is more likely to result from the discovery of commercial volumes of oil offshore – but where?
Oil has been discovered onshore in the Albertine Graben of Uganda (and very recently in Kenya).
Large amounts of gas have been discovered offshore – in both Mocambique and Tanzania – but no oil as yet.
The gas volumes discovered in both Mocambique and Tanzania are significant and as a distant observer one’s immediate response is to think that they are both candidates for LNG schemes. However, this perspective ignores the focus both host governments will have on domestic issues such as creating a local market and providing employment in the relatively short term.
A combination of successes – for example shale gas onshore in the USA, conventional gas in the Eastern Mediterranean and on the NW Shelf of Australia – have led to there being a large number of global LNG opportunities, for gas to move to either Europe or SE Asia, which may mean that somewhat more costly East African LNG will have to wait its turn in the queue. Whilst the Majors may be content to ‘bank’ gas for the longer term, ready for the day the price rises and it is needed, as pointed out above this may not at all be in line with the hopes and expectations of the governments of Tanzania and Mocambique.
The attraction of offshore oil would be that the global price is probably going to remain high and that a discovery of a few hundred million barrels can be developed fairly rapidly with an FPSO and shuttle tankerage (indeed many tankers pass this way as they go around the Cape of Good Hope!).
So where might there be oil offshore?
Let’s see if this Forum can figure that out!
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David Bamford is well known around the oil & gas industry both as an explorer and a geophysicist. He holds a Physics degree from the University of Bristol and a Ph.D in Geological Sciences from the University of Birmingham.
Since 2004, he has been a non-executive director at Tullow Oil plc, being recruited for this position especially for his exploration knowledge. He serves on the Nominations and Remuneration Committees, and was chairman of the latter, and Senior Independent Director, for 3 years prior to his retire from the board at the end of April 2014.
He was on the board of Premier Oil from May 2014 to May 2016.
He retired from BP plc in 2003, his last four positions being Chief Geophysicist (1990-1995), Business Unit Leader (General Manager) for first West Africa and then Norway (1995-1999), and finally Head of Exploration until 2003.
He has served on the boards of Paras Ltd, a small exploration and IS/IT consulting company in which he held 22% equity, until its sale to RPS Energy in 2008 and Welltec a/s, a Danish well engineering company, as the nominee of the private equity investor Riverside.
From 2012 to 201 he was on the board of ASX-quoted Australia Oriental Energy as a non-executive director.
He was a founder of Richmond Energy Partners, a small oil & gas research house, and several media companies that focus on the oil & gas sector, and has served as an advisor to Alliance Bernstein, Opus Executive, the Parkmead Group plc, and Kimmeridge Energy LLP. Since retiring from BP, he has undertaken asset and company valuation projects for investment banks, hedge funds and small oil companies.
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Within Mars Omega LLP, Anthony is responsible for managing and controlling the extensive information networks, as well as directing and working with the analysis team to create reports for clients, and also works with Hamish MacDonald in the Liaison and Mediation service.
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In 2008 Mike oversaw the Kiliwani North gas discovery for Aminex in Tanzania, followed in 2012 by the onshore Ntorya gas discovery in 2012, a Middle Cretaceous discovery estimated at the time to consist of approx. 1.2 Tcf GIIP.
In 2014 Mike resigned from his role as Exploration Director at Aminex and took on the role of Exploration Manager for PICO in Cairo, Egypt, however this only lasted some 3 1/2 months as Mike contracted a virus that led to heart failure – fortunately whilst back in the UK for Henley Regatta. Mike made a full recovery, just in time for the oil price to slide down to $20. As a result of poor timing of falling ill, Mike has since been working as an independent consultant with a primary focus on East Africa and North Korea, when not fighting to keep his ageing Land Rover on the road, and gazing out at the Sticklepath Fault from his study at home on Dartmoor in Devon.
Mike graduated from University College of Swansea, Wales, with a Geology degree and joined SSL - Seismograph Services (England) Limited - and was posted to Libya processing onshore seismic data prior to returning to the UK and working as a seismic interpreter on UKCS speculative seismic data.
In 1985 Mike joined BP as a geophysicist, initially in the Far East Regional Appraisal Group, prior to postings to San Francisco to work on the onshore San Joaquin Basin of California, and Cairo, Egypt, to work on the Gulf of Suez and the Western Desert, before returning to London at the end of 1989 to work on deepwater West Africa.
In 1991, Mike joined LASMO initially working on West Africa, but also sub-Saharan Africa including the Seychelles. Mike then joined the Russia group, focussed on new opportunities mainly in West Siberia, leaving in 1993 and working as an independent consultant on West Siberia and West Africa, until joining Phibro to work on the White Knights Joint Venture in West Siberia until 1998, at which point Mike joined Aminex initially in the Tatarstan and Komi semi-autonomous Republics of Russia. In late 2001, Mike persuaded Aminex management that East Africa offered low cost opportunities with little competition, yet potentially large rewards, resulting with Aminex entering Tanzania in 2002.
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Peter Evans has spent eight years working for Tullow Oil plc on UK Southern North Sea, Uganda and other African assets in a number of geological, evaluation and management roles and currently heads geological operations across Tullow’s assets.
Tullow Oil plc is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration companies in Europe. The Group has operations in Africa, Europe, South Asia and South America. Tullow is headquartered in London and employs nearly 2000 people world-wide. Current production is ~90,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). The company drills tens of exploration, appraisal and development wells annually, included multi-well campaigns in Ghana, Uganda and Kenya, with high exploration success rates.
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Tullow Oil plc is one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration companies in Europe. The Gr
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Stephen is a Commercial Manager at Sasol Petroleum International responsible for Southern Africa. In a previous life he was an exploration geologist for Murphy, Hamilton Brothers and BHP and retains a keen interest in the petroleum geology side of the business.
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Sasol is a global integrated chemicals and energy company spanning 30 countries. Through our talente
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