Twoyears after Innoson Group of Companies diversified beyond automotive production, following the award of oil licences by the Sierra Leonean government, its oil and gas arm, Innoson Oil & Gas Ltd (IOG), has hit a mega-gas find in the West African country.

It was announced in Sierra Leone yesterday that a recently concluded independent third party evaluation by Ryder Scott Company, an international consulting firm of oil and gas search and exploration experts, confirmed Innoson’s earlier hinted find of 8 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas in the Sierra Leonean basin, is genuine.

A statement by Ryder Scott Company further confirmed that Innoson Oil & Gas also found an estimated recoverable resource of 234 million barrels (MMbbl) of condensate during a rigorous hydrocarbon exploration campaign it has been conducting in the Sierra Leonean basin since 2020.

The independent third party evaluation “revealed an SPE-PRMS P50 estimated un-risked gross prospective recoverable resources,” which the official statement said is “attributable to the Innoson Oil & Gas (IOG) concession offshore Sierra Leone.”

Innoson Oil & Gas was awarded nine graticular provisional blocks in May 2020, and the following year, the parliament of Sierra Leone ratified a petroleum exploration and production licence in favour of the Nigerian multinational as contained in a letter of conveyance in April 2021.

The Sierra Leonean basin has a working petroleum system, corroborated by oil deposits encountered during previous exploration activities amongst others by Anadarko, Repsol, and Tullow Oil that achieved the Venus B1 (drilling depth) discovery and Mercury wells.

Giving more insight into his company’s successes in far away offshore Sierra Leone, IOG’s Administrative Director, Martin Nweke, explained the boldness and the willingness to deploy unconventional but performance technological ingenuities as well as people- constituted foundational propositions that drove the campaign of the industry novice.

It was learnt that the Innoson Oil & Gas exploration team, led by the Project Director and Chief Geologist, Dr. Andrey Sergeev, had ab initio, deployed robust earth remote sensing (ERS) method for basin reconnaissance.

The Ryder Scott Company statement further disclosed: “Assessment of gathered ERS data pre-informed the choice and number of graticular blocks in IOG extant acreage. The so determined ERS acreage pre-knowledge reduced the need for 2D & 3D seismic- and well-data to target only prospective anomalous zones in the contract area.

“The development opportunity is currently being appraised. Asset evaluation, a field development plan, and the setup of a data room are vigorously pursued with the immediate objective to engage a farm-in partner; ideally, with the financial strength, technological and management competencies to accomplish joint discovery, development, and production.

“Innoson Oil & Gas has a 100 per cent working interest on the prospect with a 10 per cent carried, plus an optional 5 per cent paid interest(s) for the state of Sierra Leone. Attractive fiscal and tax regimes by the state of Sierra Leone offer a flexible robust environment for a big take off.”

Following the conclusion of a fourth licensing round, Innoson Oil and Gas, was in 2020 awarded offshore oil blocks 96, 97, 114, 115, 116, 117, 133, 134 and 135. (Sunday Sun)

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