Wessex Exploration (LON:WSX) could shortly be mixing it with the big boys in a second project, the company revealed today.
It already has a minority interest in a high profile discovery off the South American coast led by a consortium of majors - Total, Shell & Tullow.
The discovery and Total’s subsequent £71 million takeover bid, which Wessex spurned, catapulted the company from obscurity into AIM’s limelight.
And this morning it told investors that it has seen a ‘significant increase’ of industry interest in one of its other assets - early stage exploration acreage in East Africa.
Wessex owns a 70 per cent stake in a 9,100 square kilometre permit in the waters surrounding Juan de Nova, a small tropical Island in the Mozambique Channel, off Madagascar’s north west coast.
The island itself spans just over 4 square kilometres and it hosts little more than an airstrip and a French garrison. But as a result of the massive gas discoveries nearby in Mozambican waters, the offshore acreage is potentially of great interest.
Today Wessex revealed that it has now signed confidentiality agreements with ‘several large oil and gas companies’, which are now evaluating the acreage.
The company also reported that it has reprocessed some recently purchased 2D seismic data from the area, 1,000 kilometres worth shot in 2006 by TGS-Nopec. It says this has particular emphasis on the shallow water area and this will allow more accurate subsurface interpretation to be made.
Wessex also said that it is negotiating terms so that it can have the data re-interpreted. This is likely to be followed up with a new, detailed, 2D seismic survey or perhaps 3D seismic later this year, Wessex said.
All this work is being done in preparation for the delineation of a drillable prospect later in 2013, it adds.
Wessex has a 1.25 per cent in the Guyane venture that made the large Zaedyus oil discovery.
The find is believed to have ‘multi-billion barrel’ potential. And perhaps more importantly it opens up the prospect of a whole new oil region. As such it subsequently de-risked the venture’s associated prospect inventory offshore French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana.
Earlier this year, the primary venture partners started planning a follow-up exploration and appraisal programme, which is expected to include 3D seismic acquisition and a drilling programme, scheduled to commence in mid-2012.
Total, one of the major venture partners with a 25 per cent stake, made a £71 million offer to buy Wessex. Initially the company backed the bid, but shortly afterwards principle shareholders rejected the proposal.
Wessex says it is fully funded for all its current requirements including participation in a Zaedyus appraisal well in addition to a further well to explore the scope of the new hydrocarbon frontier.