(Business in Cameroon) - An official statement revealed that Cameroon’s government and the British oil and gas exploration company Tower Resources reached an agreement for new measures, aiming to support their production sharing contract, related to the shallow-waters Thali block at Rio Del Rey, in the eastern part of the Niger Delta.  

These new measures suggested to “reprocess existing 3D seismic and undertake studies such as attribute analysis”, and to “continue geological and geophysical interpretations, using the reprocessed data, to high-grade drillable prospects”.

According to the aforementioned statement, the new measures will lead to “an extension of the initial period of the exploration phase to allow all contractual obligations to be fulfilled”.

“By deferring the acquisition of new 3D data in favor of reprocessing existing 3D data we can save time and money in the near term, and move faster towards sourcing a rig in the currently depressed rig market. This not only accelerates our progress towards a well, but also makes the cost of our work program over the coming year much more affordable,” Jeremy Asher, Chairman of Tower, said.

Let’s remind that on September 15, 2015, Cameroon’s company in charge of oil exploration signed a production-sharing contract for the shallow-water Thali block with Tower Resources.

This contract planned oil and gas exploration on the block, the acquisition of 3D seismic data in 2016 and the effective start of exploration activities between 2017 and 2018.

Tower Resources will invest, under a 7 years period, about CFA24 billion for the exploration of this block that covers an area of 119.2 km² in the eastern part of the Niger Delta.

Brice R. Mbodiam