Oslo-listed oil and gas company PetroNor has been given more time by the Government of The Gambia to progress its ongoing discussions over its A4 offshore license with potential partners.
The Gambian government has granted PetroNor a one-year extension to the Longstop date of the A4 offshore license until October 18, 2022.
The company last year announced a settlement agreement with The Gambia resulting in the reinstatement of the A4 licence to PetroNor, when the company was granted a period of one year, ending September 18, 2021.
Commenting on the extension, Eyas Alhomouz, Chairman of PetroNor, said: "We are delighted to have negotiated this extension which strengthens our long-standing partnership with the Government of The Gambia. After the successful reinstatement of the license, PetroNor has progressed discussions with a number of interested parties.
"This extension will hopefully enable the Company to convert those discussions into a formal partnership agreement with a view to proving up the exciting prospectivity of A4. The market conditions and industry appetite for this kind of high-impact asset have vastly improved over the past few months which has solidified our confidence in realizing value from this asset going forward."
PetroNor has said that the A4 license is located within the same proven play trend as Senegal and Woodside's Sangomar field, "a play which is expected to extend southward into The Gambia."
Back in 2015, PetroNor announced that independent petroleum consultant ERC Equipoise had prepared an updated assessment of prospective oil resources attributable to the company’s Gambian license. The assessment in conjunction with management update, estimated the net unrisked mean prospective oil resources of A4 at approximately 2 billion barrels of oil.