Equatorial Guinea is set to launch a licensing round on 1 April that will offer gas-rich Block R, which was operated by Ophir Energy until the end of last year when the licence lapsed, writes Barry Morgan.

The London-based player had hoped to secure an extension to the block in an effort to commercialise more than 2 trillion cubic feet of gas held in its deep-water Fortuna complex.

However, Mines, Industry & Energy Minister Gabriel Obiang Lima did not renew the licence and it will now be offered, along with 12 other deep-water and ultra-deepwater blocks, in the upcoming acreage offering.

The available acreage will comprise a development component alongside an exploration component.

“This will therefore be the first licensing round to have an exploration area and a development area” with further details announced during the first week of April at the Association of Petroleum Producers Organization conference in Malabo, said Obiang Lima.

The licensing exercise was mooted for early March, so has been only moderately delayed, according to Roberto Blanco, managing director of UK consultancy Perceptum.

Perceptum is preparing data sets and promotional materials for the round which was originally to include all available acreage off Bioko in the Rio Muni and Douala basins, plus four blocks off remote Annobon island.

Block EG-18 was secured by Total last year, leaving EG-4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23 and 26 as open acreage plus a clutch of relinquished part-blocks and four areas around Annobon Island, located south-west of Sao Tome.

"More blocks may become available as we approach the (round) launch on 1 April," Blanco told Upstream.

Obiang Lima earlier warned that extensions to all existing licenses would be denied unless their operators and partners collectively agreed to invest a minimum of $2 billion in the country, potentially affecting established operators such as ExxonMobil, Kosmos Energy, Marathon Oil and Noble Energy.

Equatorial Guinea also plans to licence onshore acreage in the course of 2019.

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Equatorial Guinea to launch April round