New “Oil Speculators

By Paul Tentena

 The Government of Uganda recently signed a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) and issued a License for Petroleum Exploration, Development and Production over the Kanywataba Contract Area with Armour Energy Limited (AEL) from Australia.

This brought the number of players actively in Uganda’s Petroleum Exploration and Production Industry to four, in addition to the 3 companies Total E&P, CNOOC, and Tullow already holding oil exploration and production licenses in the Graben.

Oranto Petroleum International of Nigeria was granted a license earlier this week, after going through to final negotiations for the award of the Production Sharing Agreements to cover the Ngassa Shallow Play and Ngassa Deep Play exploration blocks located near the southern part of Lake Albert.

Who is Armour Energy Limited?

Armour Energy Limited is a company duly organized and existing under the laws of Australia. It is also registered in Uganda under the Companies Act of 2012 as Armour Energy Limited. The company holds acreage in the Northern Territory and in Queensland both in Australia, and is listed on the Australian Stock exchange.

It is an ASX Listed exploration and Production Company focused on the discovery, development and production of gas and associated liquids resources.

What sort of work on exploration have they done?

The company’s exploration portfolio includes the Bowen-Surat Basin, Isa Super Basin, South Nicholson and Georgina Basins in Queensland and the McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory of Australia.

It also has exploration interests in the onshore Gippsland Basin in Victoria in joint venture with Lakes Oil, for gas and associated petroleum liquids.

Its acquisition of assets and resources on the Bowen-Surat Basin in September 2015 is helping to establish the Company’s future as a petroleum producer.

What does this mean to Uganda’s Oil sector?

Robert Kasande, Ag. Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development Permanent Secretary notes that the major achievements from the licensing round of the new oil exploration companies was the development of a state of the art data room which remains open to the industry to view and purchase data, and will also be used for future licensing rounds.

It also opens up new exploration and production areas for more discoveries that will increase the amount of Uganda’s oil reserves to more than the already discovered 6.5 billion barrels.

“This round for Petroleum Exploration is intended to attract additional investment in the country’s oil and gas sector, expand the country’s resource base which stands currently at 6.5 billion barrels oil in place and thus increase the revenue base. It will enhance the country’s sustainability of oil and gas production,