• VAALCO exploration well offshore Gabon fails to find commercial oil
• ET-14P well encountered water in Gamba formation reservoir
• Company plans sidetrack drilling to target producing Etame field section

U.S. oil company VAALCO Energy said an exploration well drilled on its offshore Etame permit off the coast of Gabon failed to find commercially viable oil. In an operational update released on Monday, March 9, the company said well ET-14P, drilled on the Etame West structure, did not confirm commercial quantities of hydrocarbons.

VAALCO said the well, part of the third phase of its Etame field drilling programme, encountered about 10 metres of reservoir sand within the Gamba formation. However, the target zone was found to contain mostly water rather than oil.

The company said the lower section of the well will be plugged and abandoned, but it plans to reuse the existing wellbore. VAALCO intends to sidetrack the well and drill a new development well designated ET-14H, targeting a section of the Etame field that is already in production.

The offshore Etame field is VAALCO's flagship asset in Gabon, where the company has operated platforms and producing wells since the early 2000s. The permit produces more than 15,000 barrels of oil per day, according to company results published in 2025.

The setback comes as VAALCO pursues a near- and medium-term growth strategy. Investor presentations released in 2025 show the company is targeting a roughly 50% increase in production by the second half of 2026, with a longer-term goal of surpassing 50,000 barrels per day by 2030.

The growth is expected to come from reserves already identified within the company's portfolio as well as new exploration opportunities. Planned initiatives include a 2026 drilling campaign at Port-Bouët in Côte d'Ivoire and continued development of the Venus project in Equatorial Guinea.

Producing assets remain central to the strategy. In Gabon, the Etame Marin offshore permit is one of the group's main production contributors. In late February 2026, Agence Ecofin reported that VAALCO had brought a new well online at Etame, designated ET-15H-ST, with an initial flow rate of about 2,000 barrels per day as part of ongoing development operations on the permit.

Abdel-Latif Boureima