Offshore staff
LONDON – Tower Resources is monitoring the litigation concerning Shell's proposed seismic survey off South Africa, due to the potential impact on its own plans for the offshore Algoa-Gamtoos license.
It appears that the South African court found potential deficiencies in the process by which Shell and its partners had conducted environmental impact assessments (EIAs) prior to their survey.
The Algoa-Gamtoos Block, operated by NewAge, is on trend with TotalEnergies' Brulpadda and Luiperd discoveries in the deepwater Outeniqua Basin.
Tower, however, believes its deepwater area is less environmentally sensitive, but it stresses that events show that EIAs and planning process cannot be rushed.
According to Chairman and CEO Jeremy Asher, the shallow and deep sections of the deepwater slope and the deepwater basin floor fan in the Algoa-Gamtoos Block could hold 1.4 Bboe of recoverable resources.
The company remains committed to acquiring and processing 3D seismic data over the identified leads to firm up a drillable prospect, before entering the license’s final exploration period.
Offshore Namibia, Tower is completing the initial phase of basin modeling on its PEL96 license. The focus has been on the spatial distribution of the source rocks, hydrocarbon-generative kitchens and migration pathways in the southern and central area that serve the numerous leads already identified in the Dolphin Graben.
Following the deepwater drilling successes off Namibia earlier this year, the company now believes the Dolphin Graben now warrants more detailed charge modeling work to understand the hydrocarbon generation and migration history in the area.
Previous analysis identified several structural closures, some with up to 686 MMboe.
Tower is now working on a multiclient program to acquire the 3D seismic required for its final prospect evaluation and prioritization on PEL96, tentatively scheduled to start in fourth-quarter 2023.
09.30.2022
