HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Erin Energy Corporation (Erin Energy or the Company) (NYSE MKT:ERN) (JSE:ERN) announced today it has entered into a definitive farm-out agreement with FAR Ltd. (FAR), an Australian Securities Exchange listed oil and gas company, whereby FAR will acquire an 80% interest and operatorship of Erin Energy’s offshore A2 and A5 blocks in The Gambia. Erin Energy will retain a 20% working interest in both blocks.
Highlights:
- Erin Energy to farm-out 80% working interest in the Company’s highly-prospective offshore blocks A2 and A5 in The Gambia to FAR;
- FAR to fund Erin Energy through the first exploration well;
- Erin Energy’s blocks are adjacent and on-trend with FAR’s world-class SNE oil field offshore Senegal.
Under the terms of the farm-out agreement, which is subject to approval by the Government of the Republic of The Gambia, upon closing of the transaction, FAR will pay Erin Energy a purchase price of US$5.18 million and will carry US$8.0 million of the Company’s share of costs in a planned exploration well to be drilled in late 2018. In addition, if Erin Energy’s share of the exploration well is less than US$8.0 million, the balance is to be paid in cash to the Company.
Jean-Michel Malek, Erin Energy’s interim CEO, commented, “We are excited to have attracted a partner with a reputation of success in this rapidly-emerging and prolific basin into our offshore assets in The Gambia. This partnership will allow us to keep a significant stake in these highly-prospective blocks with no additional capital investment required through the first exploration well, while also strengthening the balance sheet and allowing us the ability to consider additional growth opportunities. This farm-out highlights our strategy of maximizing our exploration breadth while minimizing exploration risk.”
Blocks A2 and A5 are adjacent and on trend with FAR’s 2014 SNE-1 oil field discovery, which was the industry’s largest offshore oil discovery that year. Since the drilling of the SNE-1 well, FAR has drilled five successful appraisal wells on the SNE field and increased the field’s best case 2C contingent recoverable oil resource to 641 million barrels on a 100% basis according to FAR internal estimates.
In 2017, Erin Energy and FAR plan to undertake reprocessing and interpretation of 3-D seismic data recently acquired by the Company to further mature identified prospects on Blocks A2 and A5. The Company acquired 1,504 km2 of modern 3-D seismic data and has identified prospects on the blocks, which are similar to the “shelf edge” play FAR is targeting in its offshore Senegal blocks.
The A2 and A5 blocks cover an area of approximately 2,683 km2 (663,000 acres) within the emerging and prolific Mauritania-Senegal-Guinea-Bissau Basin and lie approximately 30km offshore in water depths of 50 to 1,200 meters (164 to 3,900 feet).
Erin Energy Corporation is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company focused on energy resources in sub-Saharan Africa. Its asset portfolio consists of 7 licenses across 4 countries covering an area of 19,000 square kilometres (~5 million acres), including current production and other exploration projects offshore Nigeria, as well as exploration licenses offshore Ghana and The Gambia, and onshore Kenya. Erin Energy is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and is listed on the New York and Johannesburg Stock Exchanges under the ticker symbol ERN.
For more information about Erin Energy or to request a hard copy of the Company’s most recent complete audited financial statements free of charge, please call +1 713 797 2940 or visit www.erinenergy.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, concerning activities, events or developments that the Company expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect.
The Company’s actual results could differ materially from those anticipated or implied in these forward-looking statements due to a variety of factors, including the Company’s ability to successfully finance, drill, produce and/or develop the wells and prospects identified in this release, and risks and other risk factors discussed in the Company’s periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their respective dates. The Company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements.
