The Australian oil company that has been granted license to test-drill Gambia’s prospective oil wells blocks A2 and A5 has been granted approval for a six-month extension to do a thorough evaluation of the SAMO-1 results, said a press release from State House on Friday.
The statement came after FAR and Petronas has announced that their first test-drill on SAMO-1 has failed, triggering huge slump on the companies’ shares according to Australian media.
The State House said the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy in collaboration with Gambia National Petroleum Company – GNPC, will continue to support FAR and its joint venture partners in their exploration efforts.
“The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has been tasked to continue to provide regular information on exploration activities in due course,” stated a part of the press release.
The release further said President Adama Barrow has been updated on the results of the first FAR and Petronas offshore exploration in The Gambia.
The prospect of finding oil and gas in the first offshore exploration has been unsuccessful. The oil and gas explorers drilled the wireline logging at Samo-1 up to the total depth of 3240 meters.
The drilling, which took almost three weeks, between October and November this year, was without a success. The offshore drilling started on the 22nd October to the 9th November 2018.
The geological assessments of the drilled well have indicated the presence of all the key components of Hydrocarbons but the preliminary results of the drilling did not find any oil and gas deposits at this specific location, thereby indicating an unsuccessful well.