Africa Oil Corp. has announced its financial and operating results for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024. According to the Agbami field has delivered higher production efficiencies and lower decline rates than planned during first half of 2024. The operator has also rescheduled planned maintenance from first half of 2024 to second half of 2024 resulting in production exceeding plan for both second quarter 2024 and first half of 2024.

The asset remains on target to meet or exceed its production plan for 2024. The Agbami 4D M3 seismic acquisition survey started in second quarter 2024. The survey is expected to conclude during third quarter 2024, which will be followed by processing of the seismic and detailed planning of the proposed drilling campaign expected to commence late 2025/early 2026.

The Egina field has also performed above plan during first half of 2024 as a result of higher production efficiency than forecast. In second quarter 2024, the Akpo FPSO celebrated 15 years LTI-free. During first half of 2024, two new producers and one injection well were brought online at Akpo West, a subsea tie back to the Akpo FPSO. Both of the new production wells are producing above expectation.

first half of 2024 production at Akpo has been impacted by the planned one-month maintenance outage. Full field production resumed from the shutdown in mid-April, with production rates at the end of second quarter 2024 over 16% higher than the production rates at the start of 2024, primarily as a result of the successful infill drilling campaign.

The commitment to the drilling rig has been extended, allowing drilling to continue across the Akpo & Egina fields through 2025. An extensive seismic acquisition campaign was completed in second quarter 2024, with surveys taken in Akpo, Preowei, and Egina. The seismic acquisition campaign has established a baseline survey for the Preowei field, and 4D monitor surveys for Akpo and Egina. The latest 4D surveys will be used to guide the infill drilling program and to assist with reservoir surveillance activities.

The first phase of the Preowei Field front end engineering design (FEED) was completed in second quarter 2024, with phase 2 expected to be concluded in third quarter 2024. FEED studies are aimed at supporting a FID decision on the project and enabling Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation (EPCI) to commence in 2025.

There was a tax charge in second quarter 2024 of $31.9 million compared to an income of $302.2 million in second quarter 2023. The income in second quarter 2023 was mainly from Prime renewing the OML 130 license resulting in the award of three new petroleum mining leases and one petroleum prospecting license. These cover some of the areas previously covered by OML 130, with some of the areas also relinquished. These are PML 2 (Akpo field), PML 3 (Egina), PML 4 (Preowei) and PPL 261 (South Egina).

PMLs 2, 3 and 4 and PPL 261 operate under the terms of the PIA as from June 1, 2023. Under these terms, PMLs 2, 3 and 4 and PPL 261 are subject to a 30% Corporate Income Tax regime compared to the previous 50% PPT regime which resulted in the partial release of $346.0 million of deferred income tax liabilities during the period. This has resulted in Prime’s profit decreasing from $425.3 million in second quarter 2023 to $34.7 million in second quarter 2024, a decrease of $390.6 million.