Following the sale of its Senegal interests, the Australian oil and gas finder, has reported it is debt free with surplus cash.
It plans to focus on Bambo-1 exploration well in The Gambia, set for the fourth quarter of 2021.
The company’s new board plans to take it into the future with a fully-funded current work programme as it rationalises the company’s current portfolio and plans a success case for The Gambia operations.
On 7th July 2021, Far completed the sale of its interest in the Far Senegal RSSD SA in the Rufisque Offshore, Sangomar Offshore and Sangomar Deep Offshore (RSSD) joint venture to a member of the Woodside group, Woodside Energy (Senegal) BV.
The purchase price was US$45 million, plus a working capital adjustment of around US$167 million to reflect the acquisition effective date of 1st January 2020. First oil is targeted for 2023.
Capital return
The company has surplus capital and the board has decided to return around 80 million Australian dollars to shareholders by way of a cash capital return of 80 cents per share.
The proposed capital return represents a return of surplus capital to shareholders while retaining sufficient funding for the drilling of the forthcoming well offshore The Gambia and for ongoing purposes.
The Gambia Bambo-1 well
FAR continues with operations in preparation for drilling the Bambo-1 well offshore The Gambia, scheduled for commencement at the end of October.
A rig contract has been executed with mobilisation of the Stena IceMax drill ship expected in the second half of October.
This well is part of the 2021 work programme for the A2 and A5 licences held offshore Gambia, where FAR is the operator and has a 50% working interest while Petronas has the remaining 50%.
The Bambo-1 well is designed to drill three prospects with a total estimated recoverable prospective resource of 1,118 million barrels (arithmetic sum of Best Estimate prospective resource, 559 million barrels net to FAR, unrisked) and the chance of geological success for the various horizons range from 7% to 37%.
Approved budget for the well is US$51 million, of which FAR’s share is US$25.5 million, with US$6.5 million expended to date.
Soloo Prospect is an extension of discovered hydrocarbons in the Sangomar Field while the Bambo Prospect is a large exploration prospect which overlies Soloo.
The planned well will be targeting combined best estimate of 1.1 billion barrels of oil.
