Hamilton, Bermuda – Erik Tiller, Chairman, and Scott Aitken, Chief Executive Officer, of Seapulse Ltd. (“SeaPulse”) are pleased to announce that SeaPulse’s partner, Azinam South Africa Limited (“Azinam”), has completed the acquisition of a 50% operated interest in Block 2B, offshore South Africa.
SeaPulse is a global oil and gas appraisal and exploration company established by Robert Friedland’s I-Pulse Inc. and Seacrest. Leveraging a big data approach to global appraisal and select exploration, SeaPulse has built a portfolio of 18 billion barrels of resources, across seven geological basins. This super-major scale drilling programme, combined with diversification of risk, is intended to optimise the likelihood of achieving several successes and a significant economic return to investors.
The initial programme of up to 12 wells over the next two years, centred around three significant existing discoveries, will test three billion barrels, commencing with Azinam’s 349-million-barrel appraisal of South Africa’s largest undeveloped oil discovery.
The Block 2B oil discovery was initially made in 1988 and has since been surveyed using advanced 3D broadband seismic data acquisition, enabling the de-risking of the resource assessment through a bigdata philosophy in
conjunction with advanced geoscience techniques. Azinam will benefit from SeaPulse’s capital and project management, developing the Block 2B oil resource to the highest standards of environmental protection, and assist in delivering lower carbon energy security for South Africa.
Near-term production of oil at scale offshore South Africa will have a significant impact on the local economy, with considerable direct and indirect employment opportunities, a local supply of crude oil for South Africa’s refineries and end-users and attractive revenue for the Republic of South Africa.
“One of the objectives of I-Pulse, through its High Power Petroleum division, is to pursue opportunities to partner with operators of high-value, technically derisked energy opportunities which we believe Block 2B to be. Block 2B has the potential to create significant stakeholder value, with a material economic and social impact on the people of South Africa. Successful appraisal and development of Block 2B would provide much needed energy for South Africa, displacing higher-carbon producing fuels and reducing the costs and impact of long-distance transport,”
commented Robert Friedland, co-Founder and Chairman of I-Pulse Inc.
“SeaPulse, backed by Robert Friedland and Seacrest, is a big data-led oil appraisal and exploration company, leveraging its deep industry partnerships to monetize an 18-billion-barrel diversified portfolio of oil discoveries and prospects. SeaPulse has confirmed three high-impact appraisal wells for the next 12 months and expects to confirm further high-impact exploration wells from its portfolio later in 2021,”
commented Erik Tiller, co-Founder and Chairman of Seacrest.
“We are delighted that our partner Azinam has completed this transaction to become the operator of Block 2B in S Africa. The Block 2B well has been ranked as one of the global high-impact oil exploration projects over the next 12 months. This continues the SeaPulse strategy of combining our global big data prospect generation with lean project delivery to play a leading role in supplying the estimated one trillion barrels of oil still required through the energy transition, with a focus on delivering these with the lowest-possible carbon footprint. The Block 2B discovery, in particular, has a very focussed development plan to minimise its environmental footprint and offering a material opportunity to improve the energy security of South Africa with a lower carbon fuel source,”
commented Scott Aitken, co-Founder and CEO of SeaPulse Ltd.
About the Operator
Azinam South Africa Limited (“ASAL”) is the Operator and 50% owner of Block 2B, the offshore licence across South Africa’s largest proven oil discovery. Following this transaction, ASAL will accelerate the drilling of the Gazania well, which is designed to confirm the full potential of this oil discovery. ASAL estimates that the Gazania field and associated satellite fields could produce 349m barrels of oil over a 20-year field life. ASAL is supported by its partner SeaPulse Ltd., a Seacrest and Robert Friedland-backed vehicle.
About Block 2B South Africa
Block 2B is located in the Orange Basin and covers 3,062 square kilometres off the West coast of South Africa 300 kilometres north of Cape Town with water depths ranging from 50 to 200 metres. Oil was discovered and tested on the block by Soekor in the A-J1 borehole drilled in 1988. Thick reservoir sandstones were intersected between 2,985 metres and 3,350 metres. The well was tested and flowed 191 barrels of oil per day of 36-degree API oil from a 10-metre sandstone interval at about 3,250 metres. The 686-square-kilometre 2013 3D seismic data confirmed the up-dip prospectivity of the A-J1 discovery and significant further prospectivity up to a total of 1 billion barrels of oil on the Block 2B licence area.
Under the terms of the ASAL’s farmout agreement with Africa Energy Corp., ASAL has acquired a 50.0% participating interest in Block 2B and become the Operator of Block 2B on behalf of the joint venture partners. Africa Energy Corp. will retain a 27.5% participating interest in the block. Simultaneously, Panoro Energy has become a 12.5% participating interest holder on the licence. Crown Energy AB indirectly holds the remaining 10% participating interest.
