Heritage Oil Corporation has signed the previously announced farm-in documentation on two onshore exploration licences in Mali ("Mali"), following the Government of Mali's approval of the transaction. The two licences have a gross area of over 72,000 square kilometres and Heritage has been appointed as the Operator.
Under the terms of the transaction, Heritage has a right to earn a 75% working interest in Block 7 and Block 11 from Mali Oil Development SARL, a wholly owned subsidiary of the public company Centric Energy Corp. In return for earning the working interests, Heritage will fund all costs of the required work programs for the next two years on both blocks, comprising the acquisition of 2D seismic and the drilling of one exploration well, at a total estimated cost for the two licences of between US$15 million and US$20 million. The acquisition of 2D seismic is expected to take place later this year.
Blocks 7 and 11 are located in the Gao Graben, a Mesozoic basin that management considers to have geological similarities to other Mesozoic interior-rift basins within North Africa, such as the Muglad Basin of Sudan and the Doba Basin of Chad, and Tertiary basins such as the Albert Basin of Uganda. Previous seismic data acquired on Blocks 7 and 11 show the presence of tilted fault-block traps, and indicate a thickness of up to approximately 4 km of sediments.
