Tullow Oil starts drilling in offshore Ghana

Tullow has started drilling in offshore Ghana

Ellie Donnelly Twitter Email

April 06 2021 07:37 AM

Irish-founded Tullow Oil commenced its multi-well drilling campaign in offshore Ghana yesterday with the start of drilling of the first well at the Jubilee Field.

The company has previously announced that drillship Maersk Venturer has been contracted for four years, and is expected to drill four wells in total in 2021.

The drilling campaign is the first part of Tullow's 10-year business plan which it presented at its Capital Markets Day in November last year.

The four wells it plans to drill this year consist of two Jubilee production wells, one Jubilee water injector well and one TEN gas injector well.

In a statement today, Tullow said the Ghana portfolio has “a large resource base with extensive infrastructure already in place.”

Through a major focus on costs and capital discipline, Tullow said it believes that these assets have the potential to generate “material cash flow” over the next 10 years and deliver significant value for investors.

Rahul Dhir, chief executive of Tullow Oil, said the commencement of drilling in Ghana is “an important milestone in the implementation of our long-term business plan.”

"Working closely with the Government of Ghana and our joint venture partners in Ghana, I am confident that we will unlock the full potential from the Jubilee and TEN fields through this multi-year, multi-well drilling programme," he added.

Tullow made a loss after tax of $1.2bn in respect of last year.

The loss was driven by non-cash exploration write-offs and impairments, according to annual results from the company last month.

Revenue at the Irish-founded group fell to $1.4bn in 2020, from $1.7bn in 2019.

The company, which intends to focus over 90pc of its capital on West African producing assets, said last month that its full year production guidance for 2021 is for 60,000 – 66,000 barrels of oil per day.