Cameroon Gas Producer Doubles Sales
West African niche producer Victoria Oil & Gas (VOG) said sales from its onshore Logbaba gas and condensate field near the port city of Douala in Cameroon more than doubled year on year in the six months to end November 2015; it remains on track to spud the first of two new wells by mid-2016.
In interim results on February 29, London-listed VOG said sales from Logbaba in the latest period were 1.53bn ft3 of gas, with 23,100 barrels of condensate offloaded, compared with 719mn ft3 and 11,334b from June to November 2014. VOG’s revenue in the latest six-months increased to $18.9mn, from $11.6mn a year ago, while pre-tax earnings were $9mn (up from $1.7mn). In October it appointed Ahmet Dik as a director, and as CEO of its Gaz du Cameroun (GDC) marketing subsidiary.
GDC “maintained almost all customers within our contract price bracket of $9 to $16/mn Btu” and supplies gas to local power utility Eneo, Nigerian Dangote group’s cement plant, and Guinness. Sic Cacaos, a subsidiary of Swiss-owned chocolate trader Barry Callebaut, increased its cocoa processing capacity in the country from 32,000 to 50,000 metric tons/yr after its connection to GDC, said VOG.
Logbaba gas production in January 2016 averaged 13.9mn ft3/d, and peaked at 16.6mn ft3/d. In mid-February VOG secured a 75% operating stake in the “highly prospective” Matanda Block (1,235 km2) that borders GDC's Logbaba concession. Roughly 70% of the new block is onshore.
“Our challenge remains to convince the [corporate] market that VOG is not an E&P stock, but a business-to-business utility that has built, owns and operates a full production and gas supply chain in an energy hungry part of Africa,” said VOG executive chairman Kevin Foo. VOG has a 100% stake in the West Medvezhye exploration block in Siberia, against which it recorded a $49.8mn impairment charge in the six months to November 2014.
Mark Smedley