South Africa update

RNS Number : 2262O

Tower Resources PLC

08 February 2021

 

8 February 2021

Tower Resources plc

("Tower" or the "Company")

South Africa update

Tower Resources plc (TRP.L, TRP LN), the AIM listed oil and gas company with its focus on Africa , is pleased to announce that its subsidiary Rift Petroleum Ltd ("Rift") has received updated resource estimates from its 50% partner and license Operator, New Age Energy Algoa (Pty) Ltd ("New Age"), following NewAge's interpretation of the reprocessing of additional 2D seismic data covering the Algoa-Gamtoos license, offshore South Africa.

The reprocessing work encompassed 4,500 line kms of 2D seismic data incorporating both data already owned by the partners and also further data acquired from the Petroleum Authority of South Africa ("PASA") including tie lines from Brulpadda to the Algoa-Gamtoos area, together with two post-stack merged 3D seismic surveys in the Algoa Basin. The work was undertaken by PGS and the focus was on creating a time and phase matched dataset covering the Gamtoos Basin and the Deepwater (Outeniqua basin) section of the license area.

The resulting seismic dataset shows an overall improvement in bandwidth, de-noise and imaging. Structural imaging is substantially sharper than in the previous vintage dataset, gathers are significantly flatter with less noise, and the Operator places greater confidence in the Amplitude Versus Offset ( AVO) analysis.

The impact on what can be seen in the Deepwater (Outeniqua basin) section of the license is especially pronounced, allowing the Operator to identify a deeper level slope (as seen at Brulpadda) and three separate reservoir targets:

· A shallow section which was previously identified by the Operator, whose size is now estimated to be slightly larger, to which the Operator ascribes 470 million boe Pmean recoverable resources (unrisked);

· A deeper slope section which was not previously identified by the Operator, to which the Operator ascribes 231 million boe Pmean recoverable resources (unrisked);

· A basin floor fan section which was not previously identified by the Operator, to which the Operator ascribes 710 million boe Pmean recoverable resources (unrisked);

In addition, the Operator has been able to identify a new substantial lead in a submarine fan complex in the shallow-water Gamtoos area of the license, which it estimates to contain 135 million boe Pmean recoverable resources (unrisked); and has updated its estimates of the recoverable resources in the other leads it has already identified, some of which now appear larger and others smaller. Overall, the Operator has increased the portfolio volumes by 54% as a result of reprocessing seismic data and reinterpretation.

The Operator's most recent estimates of the in-place and recoverable resources, prepared in accordance with the SPE-PRMS classification standard, are set out in detail in the tables below:

		Oil in Place (MMbbl)
Lead		P90	P50		P10	Mean
Reedbuck		110	288		624	336
Steenbok		34	124		381	174
Lead 1		40	210		853	356
Roan		89	322		1275	558
Canyon		25	84		207	103
Deepwater Slope	Shallow	377	1,093		2,954	1,444
	Deep	111	349		1,241	563
Deepwater Basin Floor Fan		528	1,349		3,384	1739
				Summed Mean		5,273

		Recoverable Oil Equivalent (MMboe)				POSg	% change (Mean)
Lead		P90	P50	P10	Mean
Reedbuck		41	108	239	127	24 %	+ 48 %
Steenbok		13	46	145	66	21 %	+ 47 %
Lead 1		15	79	324	135	24 %	-
Roan		33	121	475	211	13 %	- 9 %
Canyon		8	27	67	33	32 %	- 58 %
Deepwater Slope	Shallow	122	354	961	470	12 %	+ 11 %
	Deep	44	142	505	231	10 %	-
Deepwater Basin Floor Fan		210	540	1,383	710	12 %	-
			Summed Mean		1,983

As previously noted, the Algoa-Gamtoos license is located adjacent to Total's Blocks 11B/12B, where Total has made discoveries in excess of 1 billion boe at Brulpadda and Luiperd, in the Outeniqua basin that runs across those blocks. The Algoa-Gamtoos license also contains the southern deep-water basin margin of the Outeniqua Basin and is approximately 150 kms along strike to the East of Total's Brulpadda and Luiperd-1X wells.

The Luiperd-1X well encountered 73 meters of good quality net pay in 85 meters of gross sands in the main target interval and, according to Africa Energy which owns 49% of Main Street 1549 Proprietary Ltd (one of Total's partners in the well) the well reached a maximum constrained flow-rate through a 58/64" choke of 33 million cubic feet per day of natural gas ('MMcfpd') and 4,320 barrels of condensate per day ('bcpd'), an aggregate of approximately 9,820 barrels of oil equivalent per day ('boepd'). The choke configuration could not be increased due to surface equipment limitations. The absolute open flow ('AOF') potential of the well is expected to be significantly higher than the restricted test rates. Current indications are that the Luiperd discovery is larger than the 1 billion boe Brulpadda discovery announced in 2019.

The Company plans to update its website section on South Africa over the coming days and will make a brief announcement when this updated section has been uploaded.

Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure

Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.

Contacts

Tower Resources plc	[phone]
Jeremy Asher Chairman and CEO
Andrew Matharu VP - Corporate Affairs
SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker Stuart Gledhill Caroline Rowe	[phone]
ETX Capital Joint Broker Elliott Hance	[phone]
Turner Pope Investments (TPI) Limited Joint Broker Andy Thacker Zoe Alexander	[phone]
Panmure Gordon (UK) Limited Joint Broker Nick Lovering Hugh Rich	[phone]

Notes:

In accordance with the guidelines for the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, Dr. Mark Enfield, BSc Geology, PhD Geology, a Director of Tower Resources plc who has over 30 years' experience in the oil & gas industry, is the qualified person that has reviewed and approved the technical content of this announcement.

Glossary:

Prospective Resources

Those quantities of petroleum estimated, as of a given date, to be potentially recoverable from undiscovered accumulations by application of future development projects.

P90

The estimated probability distribution of outcomes indicates that the estimated likelihood of a better outcome than this figure is 90%

P50

The estimated probability distribution of outcomes indicates that the estimated likelihood of a better outcome than this figure is 50%; this is also referred to as the Median of a probability distribution, and is not the same as the Mean, which is the probability-weighted average of the entire distribution

P10

The estimated probability distribution of outcomes indicates that the estimated likelihood of a better outcome than this figure is 10%

Recoverable

Those quantities of hydrocarbons which are estimated to be producible from accumulations, either discovered or undiscovered.

STOIIP

Stock Tank Oil Initially In Place

Unrisked

Quantities which have not been adjusted for the probability of loss or failure (as opposed to "Risked" quantities which have been adjusted accordingly). Risk is not synonymous with uncertainty, and is generally associated with the negative outcome; the terms "chance" or "likelihood" are more generally used to describe the probability of a discrete event occurring.

 

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