Columbus Energy Resources PLC (LON:CERP) has expanded its footprint in southern Trinidad with the acquisition of Steeldrum for £4.4mln in shares.
Steeldrum is currently producing at a rate of 200-250 barrels oil daily and has reserves of 5.6mln barrels at the Innis-Trinity and South Erin fields and 1.1mln within the Cory Moruga development project.
Columbus will also get access to two rigs, which can be used to explore its other assets in Trinidad’s South-West Peninsula.
Solo Oil PLC’s (LON:SOLO) executive chairman Neil Ritson is to retire before the end of 2018 as part of a board restructuring designed to ready the company for the future.
Ritson, who has been a director of the oil and gas investor since 2010, has offered to stay on as chief executive pending the appointment of a new non-executive chairman and thereafter as a technical advisor, as and when required.
Finance director Dan Maling looks set to take up the role of managing director when Ritson officially retires.
ADES International Holding Ltd (LON:ADES) has agreed to buy 31 onshore drilling rigs located in North Africa and the Middle East from drilling services powerhouse Weatherford International.
The deal doubles ADES operational drill fleet and includes contracts, management systems and approximately 2,300 staff throughout Algeria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
As Europa Oil & Gas Holdings Plc (LON:EOG) officially kicks off a data room for its farm-out efforts, the AIM-quoted explorer has added another big potential exploration programme offshore Ireland.
The prospect, called Egerton, is described as being analogous to the Bay du Nord discovery, off the Canadian coast - in a similar geological setting, in the ‘conjugate’ on the other side of the Atlantic.
Aminex plc (LON:AEX) has signed a binding farm-out agreement with Omani industrial conglomerate The Zubair Corporation.
The Africa-focused oil and gas producer said that in exchange for 50% of its working interest in the Ruvuma production sharing agreement (PSA), Zubair would conduct a minimum work programme including the drilling, completion, and testing of the Chikumbi-1 well; acquiring, processing and interpreting 3D seismic data over a minimum of 200 square kilometres within the Ntorya project area; and establish an early production system to achieve accelerated first gas development at Ntorya to a minimum gross rate of 40mln cubic feet of gas per day (MMcf/d), around 6,700 barrels equivalent.
Initial results from a seabed survey of the Newgrange Prospect, offshore Ireland, "support the potential presence of a working petroleum system", according to Dr John O'Sullivan, technical director of Providence Resources PLC(LON:PVR).
An assessment of the area was carried out by Gardline's M/V Kommandor exploration vessel, which identified over 100 seabed pockmark features.
While Providence conceded there may be a number of reasons for their existence, it has concluded they are most likely to be the result of "fluid seepage from the underlying geology".
Echo Energy PLC (LON:ECHO) has told investors that the fourth and final well in the current Argentina drilling campaign has encountered a ‘notable gas column’.
The well, referred to as CSo-2001(d), is located within the Fracción D project area. It was drilled down to a depth of 1,511 metres and it encountered the targeted Upper Jurassic Tobifera formation, with observations of extensive gas and light hydrocarbon shows.
Specifically, Echo highlighted that the measured 60 metres of gas shows through the Upper Tobífera – readings peaking at 168,000 parts per million, with full distribution of C1 to C5 hydrocarbons.