Energy Company Adds Succesful Appraisal to its Tanzania Gas Discoveries

In a press release today, 13 November, Ophir Energy announced a successful appraisal of the Mzia discovery in Block 1, off the southern coast Tanzania. Ophir Energy is a British exploration company that works primarily in Africa and controls 40% of Tanzania's Blocks 1, 3 and 4-- BG Group controls the other  60%.  Ophir's also sold a 20% stake in three of its blocks today to Pavilion Energy for 1.3 billion USD.  The well encountered 56m of net pay combined in the Lower and Middle sands and has confirmed reservoir quality in-line with that seen in the Mzia-1 and Mzia-2 wells. In addition, the gas down to level proven in Mzia-3 is 107m deeper than that seen in the previous wells, leading to an increase in discovered resource estimates. Provisional interpretation of the Mzia-3 result has increased the overall mean contingent recoverable resource for the Mzia discovery by c.0.7 TCF to c.5.2 TCF. Well completion operations are currently ongoing. Nick Cooper, CEO of Ophir, commented that “The Mzia-3 result is another positive appraisal well on our discoveries in Blocks 1, 3 and 4 and confirms Mzia as an anchor asset in the planned LNG development. Total discovered resources are now comfortably in excess of that needed for two trains of LNG and demonstrate the potential for further long-term growth of the project.