SDX Energy is dropping its 35% stake in the Dana Petroleum-operated Bakassi West block in the Rio Del Rey basin offshore Cameroon, after failing to make an oil discovery in late-March at the shallow-water Manatee-1X well.
SDX’s decision follows the denial of a one-year extension from authorities, in which Dana requested to complete analysis of the results of the well that intersected 26m of gas bearing section of varying quality throughout the wellbore.
Wellbore conditions did not allow the acquisition of a full suite of logging tools in the deeper sections of the hole and made the analysis of the lower intervals in the well inconclusive. Authorities did not grant, and instead asked Dana Petroleum to enter into the second exploration period, which required an additional well commitment; SDX declined to continue to move forward with this project.
“The Bakassi West concession is not a core asset to our business and we do not believe it would have been prudent to continue investing in it,” SDX CEO Paul Welch said. “Whilst the concession was an exciting opportunity, it was fundamentally non-core, and our subsequent exit allows the company to focus all of our efforts on growing our high margin production business in our core assets across Egypt. We are continuing to move forward as planned with our operations in Egypt and I look forward to reporting on our progress in subsequent updates.”
The Bakassi West concession was acquired by SDX in October 2015 as a result of a merger between Sea Dragon Energy and Madison PetroGas.
Map of Bakassi West, from SDX.
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