By Tendai Sahondo, News Editor – Tuesday 2 July 2019
HARARE (Mining Index) – Australian headquartered oil and gas exploration firm, Invictus has started the farmout process for its exciting Muzarabani prospect after an independent report confirmed unprecedented oil and gas deposits domiciled on the firm’s Mzarabani prospect.
A farmout agreement is entered between the owner of a mineral lease, called the “farmor”, and another company that wishes to obtain a percentage of ownership of that lease in exchange for providing services, titled ‘farmee’.
According to a recent update released by the firm, Invicticus has since engaged UK based ENVOI, a leading Acquisition and Divestiture (A&D) adviser for the international upstream oil and gas industry, to run the farmout process. The company has since received significant industry interest ahead of the data room opening and is currently executing confidentiality agreements with several parties.
Invictus Managing Director, Scott Macmillan said the firm is sitting on 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) on its Mzarabani prospect located in the Caborra Bassa Basin.
The impressive deposits comprise of 6.5 trillion standard cubic feet (Tcf) and a net of 200 million barrels of condensate. The findings were confirmed by a Getech report on Invictus’ 80% owned and operated project.
Macmillan said the estimate primary Upper Angwa target within the Mzarabani Prospect has increased to 4.4 Tcf + 187 million barrels of conventional gas-condensate on a gross mean unrisked basis.
“In addition, the newly identified Msasa Prospect, a new substantial structural prospect within SG 4571(Mzarabani operating permit area) which is also a stacked anticline feature, is estimated to contain 1.05 Tcf and 44 million barrels of conventional gas-condensate on a total gross mean unrisked basis. The Mzarabani Prospect has grown significantly in its scale and represents one of the largest conventional exploration targets globally,” he said.
Invictus and Getech technical teams worked tirelessly over the past year to deliver the updated estimates. Macmillan said the substantial work undertaken to integrate the geological and basin modeling studies with the reprocessed and interpreted gravity, magnetic and seismic datasets had enabled the teams to characterise the subsurface in more detail and identify and quantify the additional prospectivity.
“This has not only materially enhanced the value of our acreage, but also de-risked it. Invictus has benefited from Getech’s expertise and knowledge as well as the application of their proprietary geoscience data, analytical workflows and ‘Globe’ knowledge-base to significantly enhance our understanding of the petroleum system in the Cabora Bassa Basin,” he added.
Invictus’ total prospective resource now stands at 9.25 Tcf + 294 million barrels of conventional gas across its Mzarabani and Msasa prospects. The Mzarabani Prospect is estimated to contain 8.2 Tcf + 250 million barrels of conventional gas unrisked across 5 horizons while an additional Msasa Prospect identified 1.05 Tcf + 44 million barrels of conventional gas / condensate unrisked across 3 horizons.
The Company has engaged the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC) to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of SG 4571. The commencement of the EIA aims to ensure all necessary pre-drilling permits and activities are completed well ahead of schedule.
The Cabora Bassa Project encompasses the Mzarabani Prospect, a multi-TCF and liquids rich conventional gas-condensate target, which is potentially the largest, undrilled seismically defined structure onshore Africa. The prospect is defined by a robust dataset acquired by Mobil in the early 1990s that includes seismic, gravity, aeromagnetic and geochemical data.
