Fourth South African Licensing Round 2009
South Africa’s
Petroleum Agency for the Promotion of Petroleum Exploration and Exploitation
(Petroleum Agency SA
www.petroleumagencysa.com)
announced that the Fourth Offshore Licensing Round will open on 15 March
2009. Two previously unexplored
areas are available for bid.
The Orange Basin Deep Water Licence covers an area of 43,000 square
kilometres off the west coast of South Africa;
and the Tugela licence area covers 48,798 square kilometres off South Africa’s
east coast.
The Orange Basin
and Tugela areas have been divided into smaller quarter degree blocks and
partial blocks. The minimum bid
is for one quarter degree block, but may extend to any area or shape
providing that the blocks are contiguous within the bid regions.
Companies can bid for either
Technical Cooperation Permits (TCP) or Exploration Rights.
The licensing round is expected to close on 30 September 2009.
Map:
The location of
the Orange
Deep and Tugela licence areas.
Source:
PetroView®
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The frontier regions available in
this Fourth Offshore Licensing Round offer companies the opportunity to
further explore the oil and gas potential in South Africa.
The Orange
Basin boasts the Kudu gas discovery on
the other side of the international boundary in
Namibia, and some success has already been proven in
the basin within South Africa.
Previous wells drilled in the Tugela licence area have confirmed the
presence of numerous leads and a working hydrocarbon system, and existing
infrastructure in nearby Durban adds to the attraction to this region.
The Petroleum Agency SA hopes that this licensing round will
contribute to “increasing and sustaining South Africa’s
current oil and gas production with a view to increasing the country’s level
of self sufficiency and economic development”.
Orange Basin Deep
Water Licence Area
The Petroleum Agency SA are offering
this deepwater region of the Orange Basin covering an area of 43,000 square
kilometres off the west coast of South Africa and bounded to the north by
the Namibia/South Africa international border.
The area is located approximately 300 kilometres offshore and water
depths range between 1,000-3,500 metres.
Seismic data is available for the north of the region where there is
3,124 kilometres of migrated stack 2D data in SEG-Y format obtained during
1987-2002. There have been no
wells drilled in the licence area on offer; however, 40 wells have been
drilled in the Orange
Basin.
Map:
The location of
the Orange
Deep licence area.
Source:
PetroView®
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Tugela Licence Area
The Tugela licence area covers
48,798 square kilometres offshore the east South African coast ranging in
water depths between 0 to 3,000 metres.
The Petroleum Agency SA is offering for bid 14 quarter degree blocks
and eight partial blocks covering the Durban
and Zululand Basins.
A sample dataset is available for the Tugela licence area including
navigation and SEG-Y data for key 2D seismic lines, well information, logs
and reports which is available from the Petroleum Agency SA for a fee.
Map:
The location of the Tugela licence area.
Source:
PetroView®
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