UK-listed oil and gas company Afentra is pressing forward with an ambitious onshore and offshore exploration programme in Angola — including plans to drill exploration wells in the Kwanza Basin by 2027 — after the company confirmed this month that it had called off talks with potential suitors and opted to pursue its growth strategy independently.
CEO Paul McDade told Reuters the company expects to reach a final investment decision by late 2026 or early 2027 for the development of up to three discoveries in offshore Block 3/24, which Afentra operates. First oil from those discoveries is targeted toward the end of 2027. Block 3/24 contains 10 oil and gas discoveries, including finds made by TotalEnergies two decades ago that were never developed, and is located in close proximity to Afentra’s existing producing oilfields — a significant advantage for development economics.
Afentra is also currently drilling the Pacassa SW well in Block 3/05 and expects results by July, before a second well is drilled in close proximity at Impala. McDade said that if the company can identify approximately 50 million barrels of recoverable oil from those prospects, it would represent a 50 per cent increase on current booked reserves — a potentially transformative outcome for the company.
On the onshore front, McDade highlighted Afentra’s prospects in Angola’s Kwanza Basin, an area where exploration last took place in the 1980s. The company is assessing the prospectivity of the entire basin with a target of commencing exploration drilling by 2027. Angola is sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest crude producer, and Afentra has been quietly building a material position in the country as it seeks to deliver long-term production growth.
Source: cnbcafrica.com