Afren soars to two-year high after giant oil find in Nigeria
SHARES in Africa-focused oil firm Afren soared yesterday after it said an exploration well in an under-explored offshore Nigerian basin had found far more oil than expected.
Analysts at UBS called the discovery “giant”, adding it “looks to be one of the most important made in West Africa in recent history,” in a note sent to clients.
Results from the Ogo-1 well, drilled in partnership with fellow independents Optimum and Lekoil, suggest an initial resource estimate of 774m barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), well above pre-drill expectations of 202 mmboe.
Afren has a 22.86 per cent participating interest in the block. Optimum has 60 per cent and Lekoil 17.14 per cent.
Shares in Afren jumped as much as 12 per cent to hit a two-year high in early trading yesterday, before settling to close up 8.1 per cent .
“We look forward to further exploration results in East Africa on the El Kuran well and in Kurdistan on Maqlub-1 and the exploration tail on the BR-5,” said chief executive Osman Shahenshah.