Offshore oil miss fails to dent Gambian optimism
The West African country’s most recent effort to find offshore oil came up short, but explorers hope to drill more wells in 2019
The first offshore well drilled in The Gambia in four decades found more water than oil and has been abandoned. But both the drillers and the Gambian government remain optimistic that the block's proximity to big oil finds off central Senegal means it could yet prove oil-rich. Australian independent Far drilled the Samo-1 well in the A2 permit area in partnership with Malaysia's Petronas, touting a prospective resource of 825mn barrels in the area. But Far said in November that wireline logging data indicated the main target horizons in the well, which was drilled to a total depth of 3,240m, were water-bearing. The government has extended Far's current licence to June 2019 to allow for furth

Also in this section
16 April 2025
Israel continues to strike new oil and gas concession agreements and gas exports continue to rise, but an overreliance on Egypt remains the big concern
15 April 2025
Loss of US shipments of key petrochemical feedstock could see Beijing look to Tehran with tariffs set to upend global LPG flows
15 April 2025
Australia’s East Coast Gas projections for a supply shortfall have been pushed further out, but the challenge to meet evolving gas demand and the shifting assumptions around the fundamentals remain just as stark
15 April 2025
Long-delayed prospects for onshore LNG production in Mozambique have improved thanks to US financing approval, but security challenges blight way ahead