Africa-focused UK oil and gas explorer, Tullow Oil, has disclosed that it will, in 2015, concentrate its investment focus on its producing assets and existing discoveries in West and East Africa and could divest from its offshore operations in Mauritania and French Guiana.
Chief Executive, Aidan Heavey, said the company was reviewing its capital expenditure and cost bases, necessitated by weak oil prices and poor offshore drilling results.
“In 2015, we will be focusing our capital spend on producing and development assets, particularly in West Africa where, by 2017, the Group expects to be producing, net to Tullow, over 100,000 bpd of high quality, high margin oil. Our overall exploration spend will be significantly reduced and will focus primarily on East Africa where we have major basin-opening potential,” Heavey explained in a press release posted on Tullow’s website today.
Tullow is among the companies at the forefront of oil explorations in East Africa. In June, the oil firm discovered oil and natural gas deposits in northern Kenya, while its partner, Canada’s Africa Oil, also found gas in a separate site. The June find was Tullow’s sixth oil discovery in Kenya. Two of the sites are regarded as economically viable – Amosing-1 and Ewoi-1, both located in Block 10BB, where recent discoveries have raised the potential of the area from 600 million barrels of oil reserves to one billion barrels.
However, the company, which has a 50 percent stake in resource-rich Block 10BB, says it now wants to focus more on the commercialisation of its existing discoveries, even as it promises to continue with its exploration operations “as conditions allow”.
