Upstream investment company Wildcat Petroleum has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sudan’s Ministry of Oil to advance the development and commercial exploitation of hydrocarbons in Sudan and to develop the oil sector, targeting an oil production increase of 100,000 barrels per day.
Announced on 17 October, the MoU will target the development of producing Blocks 1, 3, 4 & 5, which contain a combined total of 1 billion barrels of oil reserves and resources.
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The Blocks are linked by connecting facilities and petroleum transport infrastructure, with spare capacity to significantly increase oil production.
“The company has consistently stated its ambition to be a producing oil company, dividend paying, owning reserves/resources and be debt free,” stated Manghir Singh, Wildcat Petroleum Chairman, adding, “This deal is a major step forward to the company achieving this objective.”
State-owned oil company, the Sudan National Petroleum Corporation and Wildcat Petroleum have indicated that the MoU will require significant investment in the country, with Wildcat having been in preliminary talks with potential partners, which will include hedge funds, a London-listed multinational oil company, and large-scale international and regional investors in the energy industry.
“A lot of work has gone on in the background in the past year both in terms of assessing third party finance options as well as drawing up operational oil production development plans with the government. With oil prices hovering at historical highs, it is the intention of the company to proceed quickly to signing its first production sharing agreement with the Sudanese Government,” concluded Singh.
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It was noted that technical resources would likely be provided by financiers due to the scale of investment required, with Wildcat itself not expecting to fund significant capital expenditure.
Additionally, working in partnership with state resources, Wildcat Petroleum has stated its aim to start up a number of oil projects running simultaneously across each of the four blocks by 2023.
