All articles in the Farm in, Farm Out Section:

Angola’s National Agency for Petroleum, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), has announced the winners of the country’s 2020 Bid round for hydrocarbon property in the Lower Congo (CON) and Kwanza (KON) Onshore Basins.

Six companies were handed operatorships of the nine acreages on offer, while 10 companies are non-operating partners in all the blocks. MTI Energy is the bid round’s major beneficiary, as it gets to be operator of four out of the nine blocks and has no less than 50% equity in all the blocks it is allocated to operate.

Other designated operators are Somoil (40%, CON 1 Block); Mineral One (35% CON 6 Block), Simples Oil (50% KON 6); Alfort Petroleum (50%, KON 8) and AIS Angola (60%, KON 9).

MTI Energy will operate Blocks CON 5 (with 50%), Block KON 5 (with 60%), Block KON 17 (with 60%) and Block KON 20 (with 50%).

Of all the winners, Somoil is the only one currently operating in the country as an oil producer.

Several of the winners, operators and non-operators alike, are Angolan homegrown companies, untested in oilfield development. But this could easily be Angola’s “Nigeria Marginal Field 2003 Moment”, a reference to that period, 18 years ago, when 24 home grown companies, with nary an experience in E&P development, were granted operatorships of small discoveries. That bid round is partly credited for the emergence of the Nigerian independent and much of the capacity building that has happened in the industry in the last decade.

The full details of the award are described below:

Angola will award the nine onshore concessions offered in the 2020 round, to winners on September 23, 2021.

The country has meanwhile launched a bid round for the award of eight offshore oil blocks, in the same week the government says it has selected winners for the 2020 awards.

A total of 16 companies, of which 13 are Angolan and three foreign, submitted 45 investment proposals for the exploration of CON 1, CON 5, and CON 6 (onshore Lower Congo) and KON 5, KON 6, KON 8, KON 9, KON 17, and KON 20 (onshore Kwanza Basin) in the 2020 bidding process. The contestants include Monka Oil, Brightoil, Mineral One, PRODIAMAN, Alpha Petroleum, Sonangol P&P, MTI Energy, Tusker Energy, Somoil, AIS, PRODOIL, UPITE Oil Company, Simples Oil Group, Service Cab, Omega Risk Solution, and Intank Group. 

Once the award for the 2020 round is over, however, the focus will move to the competition for the eight acreages on offer in the 2021 round.

The 2021 round, announced on September 14, 2021, features three acreages in the Kwanza Maritime Basin (Blocks 7/21, 8/21, and 9/21) and five in the Lower Congo Maritime Basin (Blocks 16/21, 31/21, 32/21, 33/21, and 34/21).

“The tender for the attribution of blocks under bidding takes place under the terms of numbers 1 and 2 of article 45 of Law 10/04, of 12 November (Petroleum Activities Law) and in accordance with Presidential Decree no. 297/10, of December 2nd, (Establishes the rules and procedures of the Limited Public Tenders)”, the National Agency of Petroleum, Gas, and Biofuels (ANPG) says in a release.

Companies that show interest in this tender will be selected, based on their proven experience and accumulated knowledge in the field of hydrocarbon exploration in basins with recognized geological complexity.

To consult data in face-to-face and virtual format, interested companies must register via email: dataroom@anpg.co.ao

For additional information on the 2021 Bidding process and additional consultation on the legislation, ANPG invites worthy investors to contact the Negotiations Department through the e-mail: licitacoes@anpg.co.ao

By Editorial Board of Africa Oil+Gas Report

NNPC’s “Divestment Policy Statement”, as outlined at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) conference in early August 2021, in some way hints at the corporation’s distrust of the competence and honesty of the average Nigerian E&P independent, with which it finds itself a Joint Venture partner.

The statement by Mele Kyari, CEO of the state oil firm, declared that NNPC would be very interested in “the competency of the buyer (of any asset divested by an oil major), as well as their post-purchase technical, operational, and financial capabilities.”

Mr. Kyari has several times expressed, in public, the view that Nigerian independents, as a rule, have not acquitted themselves very well in post-purchase operations of their assets. That view has been contested, mostly in private, by some of these companies, who counter that Kyari’s statements ignore the accomplishments of some of the exceptional Nigerian companies in the last 10 years. They also argue that the imposition of the NPDC-an NNPC subsidiary-as operator, of the five assets that Shell sold in 2012, precluded those investors from taking advantage of the prevailing high oil prices by deploying robust work programmes that could have high graded those assets and ring in the cash register.  Such arguments compare the trajectories that Seplat (which was allowed operatorship) and the five other companies (who were denied operatorship), took between 2010 and 2014 before crude prices crashed. Seplat ran a work programme that saw over 16 wells drilled in that period, whereas the most competent of the new buyers of Shell asset had their wings clipped by an NPDC that struggled with bureaucracy and a lack of urgency. Some have contended that, in that period, NPDC acted as a destroyer of value.

But despite NPDC’s failings, Mr. Kyari’s suspicion of Nigerian independents has a high approval rating in some respected quarters. He and his colleagues in the NNPC are not the only set of people who are a little disappointed with how many Nigerian independents have delivered, after purchasing stakes as high as 45% of several OMLs from Shell. There are several companies who never suffered operatorship issues with NPDC, and they don’t necessarily deliver top-notch performance. Companies are consistently so undercapitalized that they struggle to raise credit to drill even development wells. A number of them are not keen enough on their community engagements, they keep being shut down by their own workers, and contrary to their claims that as locals they understand the terrain better, they are sometimes more prone to shut ins by community gangs than the majors. There is a persistent accusation, even if it’s more whispered than publicly expressed, that several Nigerian E&P operators run shell companies to do their technical services, thereby shut out even Nigerian owned local contractors and when they are not using their own service companies, they create companies that act as a buffer between them and the contractors, who effectively have to go through one more layer to solicit contracts.

The key worry of the Nigerian state, about Nigerian E&P companies, is that the treasury is poorer for the fact that several of the indigenous independents have not placed payment of taxes and royalties high on their to-do lists.

This piece was originally published in the August 2021 edition of the monthly journal: Africa Oil+Gas Report. It’s a public service piece.

By Toyin Akinosho

A fierce debate has erupted in Accra, capital of Ghana, following the announcement that the state hydrocarbon company was considering paying $965Million to purchase equity in two deepwater blocks from two European firms perceived, by some, to have ‘captured’ the country’s regulatory apparatus.

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) is in negotiation with Aker Energy and AGM, both Norwegian led companies, to acquire significant interests in Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) and South Deep Water Tano (SDWT) blocks.

GNPC will acquire directly and indirectly 37% of the Aker Energy stake in the DWT/CTP block and 70% of the AGM stake in the SDWT block.

The transaction calls for GNPC Explorco, the operating arm of the GNPC, to inherit pre acquisition development cost amounting to S$965Million as at 30th June 2021 as a tax advantage (Capital Allowances), the company said in a presentation to the country’s cabinet.

Of this calculated pre-acquisition development cost, $811Million is the GNPC’s share of the costs incurred by Hess Corporation (previous operator of DWT/CTP) and Aker Energy, current operator of the block; $154Million is the GNPC’s share of the cost incurred by AGM so far in developing the SDWT block.

GNPC says it has analyzed the Transaction and has concluded that it “offers an opportunity for GNPC to acquire operatorship capacity to enable it play a major role as an Exploration and Production company.

“It will enable GNPC and Ghana to, not only face the emerging Energy Transition in a well-prepared manner, but also create significant value for Ghana”, the state firm declares.

The proposition is that GNPC will be partnering with Aker Energy and AGM to jointly develop the DWT/CTP and SDWT blocks, after forming a joint operator company with 40% GNPC Explorco and 60% Aker/AGM through a fund. The Joint operator company will hold 10% stake in each of the blocks.

But a concert of civil society groups, numbering 15, and including such highly influential ones as Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), IMANI Centre for Policy and Education and Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), collectively disagree with the terms of the transition and the very basis of the initiative.

Their concerns  highlight a kind of dejavu. In 2019, the Ghanaian parliament, at the request of the executive, which itself was pressured by Aker/AGM, made extensive amendments to Ghana’s (Exploration and production) Act, 2016 (Act 919) and its regulations “to allow companies to hold on to contract areas at the Energy Minister’s discretion rather than automatically relinquishing part of exploration blocks as practiced before the entrance of Aker”, the group notes. The CSOs remind the public that in the 2019 event, “two Petroleum agreements were amended for Aker to limit the regulatory powers of the Petroleum Commission (PC) on the activities of the company and the participation of GNPC Explorco on the SDWT block was significantly reduced, with all such amendments captured in the law and regulations in the agreements”.

Tackling the numbers in the transaction specifically, the CSOs declare:

“Aker claims it has invested about $800Million so far on the blocks in a document submitted to Parliament. While GNPC claims it has verified the expenditures, it still appears inflated if juxtaposed against the amount of work done by Aker and the value of its acquisition three years ago. Aker acquired Hess’s interest in the DWT/CTP for $100Million in 2018. Before selling its interest to Aker, Hess had appraised the field with estimated recoverable oil of 450Million barrels. In total, Hess drilled 12 wells (seven exploratory wells and five appraisals well). With that amount of work done, the highest valuation Hess got was about $400Million in 2016 when it farmed out 40 percent to Lukoil and FuelTrade for the entire field. Akers claim it has spent about $420Million on five wells drilled on the two blocks.

In another document presented to the country’s Economic Management Team (EMT), the $420Million relates only to the three wells on DWT/CTP. Given that the DWT/CTP cost is shared among the partners of the block the total expenditure claims for the wells could be in the region of $600 or $750Million compared with $400Million by Hess for 12 wells, depending on which of the documents used. This is very high regardless of which of the information is used”.

The group then asks: Is it worthwhile, realistic—or even advisable—for GNPC to pay so much

public money for the chance to become an “operator”?

It answers its own question. “GNPC is attempting to convince Parliament that it will learn to become a world-class upstream operator through this acquisition. However, the structure

of the transaction only makes GNPC Explorco a relatively passive “joint operator”, with limited opportunity to learn by doing.

“The proposals we have seen don’t accurately detail how Aker would transfer the needed skills,

knowledge or technology into Ghanaian hands. Instead, it proposes setting up a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which Aker will control with 60 percent interest, and GNPC Explorco will have 40 per cent. This structure cannot make GNPC the operator it wants to become as the SPV is not the same as Explorcoin the Petroleum Agreement (PA)”

Final official results are expected to be announced on August 25th, 2021.

A total of 16 companies, of which 13 are Angolan and three foreign, submitted 45 investment proposals for the exploration of oil blocks in the Lower Congo and the Kwanza basins, as part of Angola’s 2020 bidding process.

The tenders expressed a total proposed investment sum of over $1Billion, the National Oil, Gas, and Biofuel’s Agency (ANPG)says.

Nine onshore oil and gas blocks are on offer in the round. 

Companies that formalized their interests include Monka Oil, Brightoil, Mineral One, PRODIAMAN, Alpha Petroleum, Sonangol P&P, MTI Energy, Tusker Energy, Somoil, AIS, PRODOIL, UPITE Oil Company, Simples Oil Group, Service Cab, Omega Risk Solution, and Intank Group. 

“The ANPG, backed by promising data about its onshore acreage, is seeking to replicate past success borne by Angola’s prolific offshore fields. The onshore sedimentary basins on offer, – namely, the Lower Congo and Kwanza – have long been home to world-class hydrocarbon discoveries”, the regulator claims in a release.

The competition’s Jury was made up of HermenegildoBuila (Director of Negotiations at ANPG), who presided over it, Carmen Canjungo (for the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas), and Airton Lucas (for the Ministry of Finance).

“From the initial data at our disposal, we believe strongly in the potential of the nine blocks on offer. We look forward to finding the right partners for exploring them at the end of this process. It is our fervent hope that these blocks will play an important role in increasing Angola’s oil output in the future,” says Natacha Massano, ANPG’s Executive Director and board member in charge of negotiations.

Early onshore exploration activities in Angola have led to the discovery of approximately 13 commercial-sized oil fields and one natural gas field, with reserves ranging in size between 5 and 40Million barrels of oil.

This tender is only yet another licensing round in line with Presidential Decree 52/19, which foresees yearly bid rounds until 2025. Now, all proposals will be scrutinized by ANPG’s technical teams. Final official results are expected to be announced on August 25th, 2021.