The next focusIR Investor Webinar takes places on 14th May with guest speakers from Blue Whale Growth Fund, Taseko Mines, Kavango Resources and CQS Natural Resources fund. Please register here.
Thanks to zengas on other board
Africa Oil Corp deals blow to Tullow Oil's Kenya Turkana fields development plans
The Canadian firm Africa Oil Corp no longer believes it can find a partner willing to invest the considerable sums needed to extract crude in the northwest Turkana region and market it through the port of Lamu.
On 27 February, Africa Oil Corp dashed the Kenyan government's hopes of developing its crude in Turkana County, in the country's northwest. With no decision from Kenyan oil minister Davis Chirchir on the Field Development Plan on the horizon (AI, 22/02/23), the Canadian junior has decided to write off its entire 25% stake in blocks 10BB and 13T, where around 600 million barrels were discovered in 2012 by Tullow Oil. The British oil explorer is currently poring over a development plan for the deposits.
In its 2022 annual report, Africa Oil Corp reported a $170m non-cash loss due to the exceptional impairment of its Kenyan assets, which the company explained by the lack of certainty of a field development plan (FDP) being submitted for the project. Meanwhile, its operating partner Tullow released a contradictory statement in early March saying it had submitted an FDP on its own and was therefore still hopeful of going ahead.
Indian investors repelled
Led by Keith Hill, Africa Oil also backed its decision to declare impairment losses on its Kenyan assets by the length of time it took Indian firm ONGC to buy out Tullow Oil's shares. The company was planning to acquire 50% of the two licences in early 2022 with another Indian state-owned company, Oil of India. But both companies are said to have been put off by the cost of the project: an estimated $3bn to bring the fields into production and build a pipeline to the port of Lamu. The passivity of former president Uhuru Kenyatta's government and that of his successor William Ruto ended up putting them off them entirely.
The project cannot go ahead, however, without another investor on top of the project's current partners Tullow Oil, Africa Oil Corp and TotalEnergies. Tullow Oil and Africa Oil Corp do not possess sufficient resources, while TotalEnergies does not want to invest any further for now in this project, which it got involved in through its acquisition of Maersk Oil in 2017 but about which it was sceptical from the start.
The Ugandan oil from Tilenga that the French major is currently developing was initially supposed to transit through Kenya. But Total decided to go through the port of Tanga in Tanzania with the cooperation of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, after Kenyatta imposed high transit fees and the use of the port of Lamu close to the Somali border and the al Shabaab militia, raising security fears."
PANG a bit of info here
https://afx.kwayisi.org/gse/
More bad news
https://www.africaintelligence.com/search?sqe=VHVsbG930
Rather negative view here
hTTps://invezz.com/news/2023/01/26/abandoned-at-the-altar-tullow-oil-faces-headwinds/
Can't see anything on Wednesday that will get us back to 40p+ Kenya could be months even years away and Ghana seems to be sinking slowly.
I hope I'm wrong and we get some amazing news but this is Tullow!!
This gives an insight to the next 12 months …..38p.
hTTps://tradingeconomics.com/tlw:ln