Madagascar governmental disputes resolved - Oil & Gas Journal

Madagascar Oil Ltd. sought to resume trading in London on June 27 after resolving most disputes with the government regarding its blocks in Madagascar.


The government acknowledged the company’s right to a 2-year extension of the Tsimiroro Block 3104 PSC to August 2014. Madagascar’s OMNIS acknowledged a delay due to the force majeure event that would be addressed at the end of the contract term if necessary.


Activity for the installation of the Tsimiroro nine-pattern steamflood pilot facility will be ramped up to progress to a start date expected in the third quarter of 2012. Madagascar Oil in 2010 reported 18 wells successful of 24 drilled and completed 430 km of electrical resistivity tomography.


A revision by Netherland, Sewell & Associates Inc. of the 965 million bbl contingent original oil in place estimate to reflect the 2010 data is expected in July 2011.


The Ministry of Mines & Hydrocarbons MH and OMNIS assured the company that that there are no technical issues outstanding under the Tsimiroro PSC.


Total SA, operator of Bemolanga Block 3102, and Madagascar Oil were granted a 1-year extension of the current exploration phase with provision for a further 2 years.


Economics do not justify proceeding with a mining project at present, and Total has shifted the work effort to pursue deeper conventional hydrocarbon potential. Mining will continue to be evaluated for potential improvements in extraction and upgrading technology.


Total completed 86 core wells whose results continued to support the estimate that Madagascar Oil’s share of the gross mine resource is 470 million bbl of contingent petroleum initially in place.


Meanwhile, discussions with the government are to continue early in July 2011 regarding the approval of the 2011-12 work programs for exploration blocks 3105, 3106, and 3107 and resolution of outstanding issues on those blocks. Madagascar Oil will seek extension of terms to account for the 2011 delay that will give it the time required to assess possible drilling locations.


Detailed analysis is under way of a microseepage survey collected on 880 sq km of the exploration blocks and will lead to further analysis of at least three drilling leads, Madagascar Oil said.


Madagascar Oil has $59 million on hand to deliver the approved work plan designed to increase resources and prove commerciality of the Tsimiroro asset through a steamflood pilot and for the additional work required to develop drillable prospects on the exploration blocks.


By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, June 24

Madagascar governmental disputes resolved - Oil & Gas Journal

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IMF Executive Board Discusses the First Assessment of Eligible Countries under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative

On December 21, 2005 the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) established the list of countries that qualify for debt relief from the Fund under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI). Debt relief delivery, which could start as soon as January 3, 2005, is now conditional on getting the consents of all the contributors to the Subsidy Account of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Trust, whose contributions help finance the Initiative. The MDRI will deliver debt relief from the Fund to qualifying members countries with an annual per capita income at or below US$380, and to countries above the threshold that have reached the completion point under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The implementation of the MDRI will reduce the external debt burden of a number of the world's poorest countries and will provide additional resources to help them reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Background The Executive Board appro...
Read more

Oil’s chaotic collapse deepens; stocks drop worldwide

Image
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices crumpled even further Tuesday, and U.S. stocks sank to their worst loss in weeks as worries swept markets worldwide about the economic carnage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The market’s spotlight was again on oil, where prices have plummeted because very few people are flying or driving, and factories have shut amid widespread stay-at-home orders. Global demand is set to drop to levels last seen in the mid 1990s. At the same time, oil producers can’t slow their production fast enough, and all the extra crude means storage tanks are quickly running out of room. The cost for a barrel of U.S. oil to be delivered in June plunged 43% to $11.57. That’s the part of the market that oil traders are focused on and trading most actively. For oil to be delivered next month, which is when storage tanks could top out, the cost of a barrel stood at $10.01. A day earlier, it fell below zero for the first time, meaning traders paid others to take oil off their hand...
Read more

Mapping Extreme Poverty Around the World A new report from the

Image
A new report from the  World Bank  just landed, finding that a record low of 10% of humanity now live in extreme poverty, down from 11% in 2013. But poverty rates aren’t anywhere close to equal between continents or even countries, as our new series of maps clearly demonstrates. The World Bank provides an in-depth explanation for its methodology, which you can find in Appendix A of the full report  here . We focused on the percentage of people in each country living below what the World Bank defines as extreme poverty, or $1.90/day. We’ll let the researchers defend this definition on their own, but there is one caveat to keep in mind. It can be extraordinarily difficult to collect reliable data from so many countries on a regular basis, and in fact we used the latest year in which numbers were available whenever possible. For example, in some of these maps we compare 2011 figures against 2015. In short, our maps provide the clearest possible apples-to-apples compa...
Read more