The Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate intends to re-launch its Fourth Offshore Petroleum Licensing Round in late April 2019. The auction originally started in January 2018, and later suspended for industry consultation in late August 2018. For this second exercise, the Director General of the Petroleum Directorate, Mr Timothy Kabba, will be relaxing the bid terms and announced that signature bonuses will be abandoned. âThere will be a maximum carried interest of 10% from the stateâ he added.  The five offered blocks in this Fourth Offshore Petroleum Licensing Round are SL-A-18, SL-B-18, SL-C-18, SL-D-18 and SL-E-18.   As shown in the official GIS portal (http://www.pd-sl.com/data-portal), some of the five offered blocks encompass the undeveloped oil discoveries made by Anadarko between 2009 and 2012. The size of the blocks ranges from 5,000 to 7,500 sq km.    SL-C-18 comprises the Mercury, Jupiter and      a large part of Venus oil discoveries, estimated to hold recoverable      reserves of 155 MMbbl of oil and 185 Bcf of gas. Anadarko withdrew in      August 2014, citing uncertainty about financial viability given the oil      resources size.        SL-B-18 is the host of the latest      exploration well drilled in Sierra Leone by Lukoil, Savannah 1X, that encountered      oil shows in 2013.      The company reported that oil      samples have been taken from Turonian sands.        SL-A-18, SLD-18 and SL-E-18      are all undrilled.   3D data are available in Freetown and at Petroleum Directorateâs technical partner Getech offices (ERCL) in London. The London center contains 15,000 line km of 2D seismic and over 10,000 sq km of 3D seismic (including PSDM volumes reprocessed by previous operators).   Interested parties should contact Timothy Kabba Director General of the PDSL (timothy.kabba@pd.gov.sl) or John Clark at ERCL (john.clark@ercl.com)  Previous licensing rounds in Sierra Leone were organized in 2003, 2004, based on encouraging seismic data acquired in the early 2000âs. They both ended with mitigated results. A third bid round took place in 2012, where eight blocks were awarded.
The Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate intends to re-launch its Fourth Offshore Petroleum Licensing Round in late April 2019. The auction originally started in January 2018, and later suspended for industry consultation in late August 2018.