Eco Atlantic Increases Stake In Exciting License Off South Africa

Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas has signed a farmout agreement under which its wholly-owned subsidiary Azinam Limited will acquire an additional 6.25 percent participating interest in Block 3B/4B, offshore South Africa.

Eco Atlantic said that the interest was acquired from the Lunn Family Trust, one of the shareholders of Ricocure Limited.

The completion of the acquisition is subject to the satisfaction of customary conditions precedent including, but not limited to the receipt of requisite regulatory approvals from the government of South Africa and the TSX Venture Exchange.

On completion of the acquisition, Eco Atlantic will through Azinam hold a 26.25 percent participating interest in Block 3B/4B, with strategic alliance partners Africa Oil Corp. – the operator of the block – holding a 20 percent participating interest, while the other partner Ricocure holds the remaining 53.75 percent participating interest.  

Block 3B/4B, is located between 75 and 155 miles offshore South Africa in the Orange Basin directly south of the prolific multibillion barrels discoveries offshore Namibia announced earlier this year by Shell with the Graff-1 discovery and TotalEnergies with the Venus-1 discovery.

The 3B/4B Block covers an area of around 6,790 square miles and lies in water depths ranging from 985 to 8,200 feet. The block partners are currently reprocessing a large 3D seismic survey that will be used to high-grade leads towards identifying drilling targets and preparing for a potential drilling campaign next year.

"We are extremely pleased to be increasing our interest in Block 3B/4B, which looks to be a very exciting license for all the partners involved. We are upbeat about the prospectivity of the license following the significant oil discoveries made earlier in the year offshore Namibia Orange Basin and we are pleased to be strengthening our working relationship with Ricocure and Africa Oil Corp. 

“We are seeing growing industry interest in the entire Orange Basin and in particular in Block 3B/4B and are therefore very happy to have managed to increase our WI on the Block. We are working closely with our partners to progress the technical work required, which includes reprocessing the 3D seismic we have for the Block, to evaluate and identify drilling prospects and high-grade leads for a drilling campaign we are contemplating for next year.

“We are set for an exciting couple of months, and we look forward to keeping our stakeholders updated as we look to spud the Gazania-1 well on Block 2B, offshore South Africa, in early September 2022," Gil Holzman, Co-Founder and CEO of Eco Atlantic, said.

To contact the author, email bojan.lepic@rigzone.com