There was some reason for cheer in an otherwise problematic week for resources stocks. Ophir Energy, as part of a joint venture with BG, announced its fifth consecutive gas discovery in Tanzania. The company reported that its Mzia-1 offshore well encountered a 178 metre gas bearing intersection, which points to a mean resource estimate of 3.5 trillion cubic feet with significant potential upside.
Meanwhile, Tethys Petroleum announced to the market that new additional 2D and 3D seismic data had pushed up the mean unrisked recoverable oil within its Kazakhstan assets to 1.17bn barrels, in addition to a substantial amount of prospective gas resources. Tethys also revealed that it was expanding its footprint in the region through a Production Enhancement Contract covering the Chegara oil fields in Uzbekistan.
Earlier in the week, Afren revealed that it was on track to meet its full-year production guidance of 42,000-46,000 barrels of oil equivalent, but more interest was generated by news that the company had encountered substantial quantities of good quality oil at its Ebok North offshore well in Nigeria. Data indicates a possible resource in excess of 100m barrels of oil at the site, which is at the upper end of Afren's pre-drill expectations, and comes barely a month after its success at the Simrit-2 discovery well in Kurdistan.
