In an exclusive interview with Proactive, Jeremy Asher, CEO of Tower Resources PLC (AIM:TRP), delves into the company's strategic focus on oil and gas exploration in Sub-Saharan Africa. Asher sheds light on their key assets in Cameroon, Namibia, and South Africa, and discusses the team that aims to transform Tower Resources into a revenue-generating entity.
Thomas Warner: So we're going to be getting a bit of an overview from you today about Tower Resources and what it is that you're working on, in general. So perhaps you could just start by introducing the business and say whereabouts in its life story it is.
Jeremy Asher: Certainly. Tower Resources is an oil and gas company with a primary focus on Sub Saharan Africa. Our main assets are located offshore, in Cameroon, Namibia, and South Africa. The Cameroon license is an appraisal and development opportunity with significant exploration potential. Meanwhile, Namibia and South Africa offer more classic exploration licenses. We've been actively engaged in these countries for several years now.
TW: Fantastic. So three areas of focus all in Sub Saharan Africa, which one are you most excited about?
Jeremy Asher: Well, it's like asking about one's children. They're all very exciting, but in different ways. Our near-term focus is, above all, on Cameroon, because that's where we have an appraisal well that we're working on at the moment, which is a future producer – we hope – and also has an exploration component. So that well is our next step on the path to revenues. And the structure there that we're drilling is an 18-million-barrel contingent resource, plus 18-million-barrel prospective resource structure, which itself will be transformative for the company. So that's fantastic, but shouldn't draw attention away from the exploration opportunity in the rest of that Cameron block.
In Namibia, we're getting to quite an advanced stage in the initial exploration period. Now, we're preparing for acquisition of 3D seismic. This is in the Walvis Bay area where we have three very large blocks, which cover about 23,000 to 24,000 acres. We know they're highly prospective: there are oil shows on the block. We drilled a well in the Walvis a decade ago with Repsol which wasn't successful, but which taught us a lot, and we've since done a lot of work on the charge modelling. And so the next phase of data acquisition is going to be very exciting as well. And of course, since our last well, we've seen two great successes from Total and Shell in the Orange basin to the south. Although that geology is different, I think that has demonstrated to everyone that the potential for large oil discoveries in the Namibian offshore is absolutely there.
In South Africa, we have a block in a joint venture with New Age, and that's the one block we don't operate; New Age operates it.
It covers both shallow and deep water, nestled between the Total-operated blocks and the Shell-operated blocks. In particular, the Outeniqua basin, where Total made the Brulpadda and Luiperd discoveries, also flows through the deep water section of this New Age-Tower block, and we have a very interesting lead there. So the licenses are all potentially very exciting, but they're naturally on slightly different sequences of timing.
TW: And naturally, Jeremy, it's not easy to make quick progress unless you've got a good team working with you. So tell us a bit about the people you've got working over there at Tower Resources.
Jeremy Asher: The team at Tower has been together for quite a while, for the most part.
On the commercial side, things are really led by myself and by Duncan Rushworth, who used to run the business development for Svenska Petroleum for the best part of a decade. So he's a very experienced commercial guy in both Africa and generally; but Duncan also has a strong geology background.
I'm really a commercial guy. I cut my teeth trading oil for Marc Rich in the 1980s and then I was in the downstream business before going into the upstream business about 20 years ago.
We're also helped by Honore Mbouombouo Dairou, who's our general manager in Cameroon. Honore is a geoscientist, and he ran the local operations for Victoria Oil and Gas when they were first getting into production and getting the pipeline commissioned. But for the best part of a decade, he's been looking after both our government relations in Cameroon and also our operations on the ground there.
On the operational side, we're also helped by Phil Church, who is our drilling manager from Bedrock Drilling. Phil is well known in West Africa, where he's done a lot of offshore wells, including the two most recent wells that New Age drilled successfully at Etinde in Cameroon. So he knows Cameroon very well and they know him very well.
I also know Phil very well because he also used to advise Gulf Keystone and still does a fair amount of work for Block Energy. On the operational side, we also have help from Gary Young, who comes to us through EPI, and who used to manage the Glencore drilling operation when they made the Oak discovery.
EPI is a strategic relationship that's very important to us. For those unfamiliar with it, they are a big consultancy organization, but they also have a specialised subsurface operation. And we have a strategic relationship with them, covering exclusive services in the areas where we operate.
They have a great track record and some superb people, and that allows us to access, as we need them, a variety of different resources, whether it's in petroleum engineering, geology, geophysics, all the subsurface tools that we need. And one of the people who founded the subsurface part of EPI is Mark Enfield, who's also an excellent geologist and is one of our non-executive directors. Our other non-executive director, Paula Brancato, is a financial person.
Then we also have the administrative team: Andy Matharu and Andy Smith, our group controller, who look after the corporate administration, and they have been with the company for over a decade.
So altogether, I'd like to think we punch above our weight in terms of the kind of resources we have access to, as we need them. Most of us have been working together for a long time now.
TW: Have you been able to coalesce around a particular vision for what you'd like the company to be in the end?
Jeremy Asher: Well, yes, right now, we're a pre-revenue company. And that's a difficult place to be on AIM. But our goal is to build production, initially in Cameroon and that will allow us to continue to both expand production there but also to explore the rest of the area around the Njonji structure where we are developing at the moment.
I think that while the exploration in Namibia and South Africa is very exciting and important to us, again, ultimately, what investors want to see is cash flow. So I'd love to see those projects come to fruition and to start generating cash flow, but exploration is risky and takes time, so that's a long way away.
In the near term, I have the belief that there's a lot more that we can do in Cameroon and once we've got cash flow and production there, then part of the key to the successful development of assets in a country like Cameroon is to be ready to make further investments in equipment and local content.
I think that's one of the things that Perenco has done very well. It's one of the things I admire about that company and something we'd certainly like to emulate in due course.
It will really be a huge moment for our company to achieve that first oil. It's a big moment for any company.