African Petroleum (APCL) has announced it has entered into a new PSC with Ophir Energy on its CI-513 licence area, Côte d’Ivoire. Ophir will take a 45% interest in return for a US$16.9m contribution towards APCL’s back costs and paying an additional 10% towards drilling costs. Importantly, the PSC has also been renegotiated to reflect the current commodity price environment and outlook for deepwater developments. This has resulted in an extension of the minimum work commitments (a well is now required within two years), adjusted fiscal terms and holding costs. The involvement of a company of Ophir’s size is a vote of confidence in the acreage, which contains Ayame West, a prospect with mean unrisked resources of 800mmstb across a number of horizons.
