Invictus’s exploration licences cover entire Cabora Bassa oil and gas fairway

Drilling of Invictus’ maiden well at Cabora Bassa is imminent and already the company has moved to expand its exploration licence footprint.

The company’s 80% owned subsidiary Geo Associates has executed an agreement with the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe (SWFZ) for assignment of the exploration rights to EPO 1848 and EPO 1849, which are contiguous to its current SG 4571 licence.

With the assignment, Invictus Energy (ASX:IVZ) landholding now covers the entire conventional oil and gas play fairway in Zimbabwe’s Cabora Bassa Basin.

This has also allowed the company to select the Baobab prospect as the preferred target to test the newly identified Basin Margin play, which displays similar structural characteristics to the prolific East Africa Rift “String of Pearls” play that provided material discoveries in the Lokichar Basin in Kenya and Albertine Graben in Uganda.

“We are extremely pleased to have concluded the Assignment Agreement with the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe to expand our exploration footprint in the Cabora Bassa Basin,” managing director Scott Macmillan said.

“The Exploration Licences are focused on the core prospective area in the basin, which is covered by our CB21 Seismic Survey and minimises our holding costs through the relinquishment of non-prospective areas in the basin.

“Subject to making an opening discovery with either Mukuyu-1 or Baobab-1, it could potentially provide us with future discoveries on a large scale within the basin.”

Big exploration portfolio

With the addition of EPOs 1848 and 1849 each covering an area of approximately 130,000 hectares, Invictus now has about 360,000 hectares of exploration ground.

They cover the newly identified Basin Margin play and entire prospective oil and gas fairway covered by the recently completed high resolution CB21 2D seismic survey.

The assignment confers all exploration rights and obligations for EPOs 1848 and 1849 from SWFZ to Geo Associates and conversion to a Special Grant upon application following a commercial discovery.

Additionally, the SWFZ will be entitled to a 10% back-in right within six months of an announcement of Final Investment Decision to develop any commercial discovery.

Drilling of the Mukuyu-1 well, which targets gross mean recoverable conventional potential of 20 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and 845 million barrels of conventional gas condensate, is expected to start later this month.

This article was developed in collaboration with Invictus Energy, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.