African Petroleum Corporation, the Australia listed operator, is close to securing much needed financing
partnership in working up its frontier acreages in West Africa. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
which it signed with PetroChina, a subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation, gives the latter
until August 31, 2012 to agree an investment in up to 20% of Block LB-09 in Liberia and up to 20% in one or more
exploration blocks in The Gambia, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
The value of the deal has not been agreed and the deal is subject to government, regulatory and other approvals, African Petroleum noted in a widely circulated release.
Africa Petroleum, which is barely two years old, made the first commercial discovery offshore Liberia with Narina 1 in November 2011. The company has raised over $200Million from investors since it came to being in 2009, and had invested money on seismic acquisition and interpretation as well as two deepwater wells off Liberia. As it added acreages after acreages in jurisdictions across the region, 2 covering over 13 000 km (gross) with
widely publicised claims of an aggressive work programme, it was clear that African Petroleum’s funding of exploration projects in these countries would be a significant challenge.
