Genel Energy share price slips as dry oil well off Angola is plugged
Genel Energy, the oil explorer and producer, yesterday saw its shares slip 1.1 per cent as it revealed it would abandon an offshore Angola well after finding no oil and gas from test drilling.
The London-listed firm said the Dilolo-1 exploration well on Block 39 offshore Angola, in which Genel has a 7.5 per cent working interest, was now being plugged as a result.
The Anglo-Turkish oil company, whose chief executive is former BP boss Tony Hayward, said the Stena Carron drillship would move to spud its Jacare-1 exploration well at Block 38, which it acquired an interest in together with Block 39 in April.
London-based Genel, with operations in the Middle East and Africa, is the largest independent oil producer in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), with its Taq Taq and Tawke fields having reserves in the range of 1.2bn to 1.8bn barrels.
Analysts at VSA Capital said: “We are more and more pessimistic about Genel’s ability to deliver on its exploration assets outside of its core area of KRI.”