Sound Energy on Monday, announced that it has received regulatory approval for the acquisition of 75% operated interest in the Sidi Moktar licences, onshore Morocco. The Sidi Moktar licences comprises of three onshore gas permits encompassing 2,700 km² in the Essaouira basin, central Morocco and contain a material existing gas discovery in the Lower Liassic, where two wells have already been...

Eni has agreed to sell a 30% stake in the offshore Shorouk concession to Rosneft for $1.125 billion, thereby reducing its stake in the giant Zohr gas field to 60%. This is coming a week after the Russian oil firm announced its interest in purchasing a stake of up to 35 percent the offshore concession in Egypt. According to the Italian oil and gas group, Rosneft would refund the pro-rata...

The former Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Abdallah Salem El-Badri (photo), has said that a crude oil production cut of about 600,000 barrels per day from non-OPEC members is a necessity. “You have to cut production. This decision is a positive step forward,” he said at a Platts conference in New York. OPEC agreed last month to cut production...

Algeria's has reduced its petroleum products import bill for 2016 by $1billion; the deputy chairman of downstream operations at Sonatrach, Akli Remini, revealed. According to Remini, the renovation of the two refinery units of Arzew and Skikda “has made it possible for us to reduce our bill of petroleum products imports, such as fuel, by one billion dollars for the 2016 fiscal...

Tullow Oil is to commence the drilling of its Erut well in Block 13T in the south Lokichar basin on December 16, 2016, the company’s Kenyan exploration manager, Kevin Christopherson, revealed. This he declared at the just concluded SPE/AAPG Africa Energy and Technology Conference which took place in Nairobi. According to Christopherson, the well has the potential to de-risk the northern...

Lekoil in its operational update, announced that oil is flowing at the Otakikpo marginal field in Nigeria to onshore storage tanks, where it will later be transferred upon completion of the offshore pipeline. According to Lekoil, all onshore facilities have been fully commissioned and approved by the regulators, and the offshore pipeline which runs from the storage tanks to the tanker offloading...

The Republic of Congo’s Oil Minister, Jean-Marc Thystere-Tchicaya, has announced that the country anticipates oil production to increase from the current 250,000 bpd to about 300,000 barrels per day in 2018. According to the oil minister, the increase will be partly as a result of a new deep offshore field expected to come on stream in 2017. The Moho Nord offshore field, the second project...

Algeria's State-owned oil company Sonatrach expected its oil and gas exports to reach 109 million tons of oil equivalent in 2016, an increase of 11% compared to the 98 million TOE recorded in 2015, Amine Mazouzi, the company CEO, revealed. According to Mazouzi, the increase mirrors a growth in major hydrocarbon production from H2 of 2016. He added that the North African country’s crude oil...

Algeria’s state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, is currently in negotiations with several foreign technology partners for the realization of 5 petrochemical joint ventures in the country, Amine Mazouzi (photo), the company’s CEO, revealed. According to Mazouzi, the ventures involve a project of ethane and LPG cracker complex of 1 million tons of ethylene, a project of PDH PP complex with a...

Eni plans to complete the first phase of its gas treatment plant for Egypt’s Zohr field’s production by October 2017, a source from Eni revealed. This is coming after Eni’s CEO, Claudio Descalzi, announced that the company was in negotiations with several parties to cut its stake in Egypt’s Zohr field to 50% operating interest. According to the source, Phase 1 represents about 24% of...