HARRYCAT
- 31 Mar 2016 08:31
- 244 of 245
Chairman's Statement
Industry Setting
The industry downturn, triggered by the decline in the oil price, has had a significant impact on the Company's fortunes. Brent has fallen from around $110 per barrel in mid 2014, to around $35 per barrel at the end of 2015. This sustained low oil price has caused companies to make dramatic reductions in their expenditure, delay major capital projects and reduce or stop taking on new opportunities. This has made it a particularly challenging environment for us in which to conduct a farm-out. There are as many views on future oil price trends as there are analysts and commentators, with little consensus at the moment. Most believe a recovery will occur, but to what level and exactly when, there is no agreement. Consequently, companies are trying to re-base their operations to weather a low cost, low oil price world.
Financial Position
Borders & Southern's financial status is relatively robust in the current environment, with a strong balance sheet and no debt. We ended the year with a cash balance of $14.0 million, compared to $16.1 million at the end of 2014. Like most companies in our sector, we have reduced our expenditure. The 2015 administrative expense was $1.97 million compared to $3.04 million in the previous year. This reduced expenditure has not impacted our ability to progress technical work and advance our understanding of our assets. We intend to maintain this capital discipline throughout 2016 and beyond.
Project Status
The industry recession has delayed the timing of the next operations phase on our Production Licences. We had hoped to have secured partners and funding for a new exploration and appraisal drilling programme by now, but have had to reset our expectations. So whilst the current Production Licence period extends through to the end of October 2017, we have applied to the Falkland Islands Government for an extension.
From a sub-surface point of view we have continued to make good progress. Earlier in 2015, we announced an upgrade in the combined Darwin East and West recoverable resource estimate (Best estimate P50: 360 million barrels of condensate) and described some of the surrounding prospects in more detail. We continue to work the Early Cretaceous shallow marine sandstone play fairway in detail, re-mapping the discovery and analysing the seismic response on near-field prospects with the aim of developing reliable predictive models for hydrocarbon presence and phase.
Additionally, we have spent time re-assessing our basin models, incorporating the results from recent drilling activity by other operators. The Humpback well was located over 250 km northeast of Darwin and its findings have no impact on the prospectivity of our Licences. In fact, our recent regional basin analysis has re-enforced our belief that our Licences are optimally located in the South Falkland Basin.
Current technical work is aimed at re-assessing how a Darwin development would fit into a low oil price world. We know that the combination of competitive fiscal terms in the Falkland Islands and excellent reservoir characteristics of the Early Cretaceous shallow marine sandstone makes a development competitive on the cost curve against other deep water developments. However, we need to assess just how commercial a project would be in a period of sustained low oil prices. Previously we had considered 2 to 3 appraisal wells and 10 development wells (6 producers, 4 gas re-injectors) with sub-sea tie back to an FPSO. New reservoir engineering studies are looking at reduced well count models. Outputs from this work will feed into a fresh look at facilities engineering concepts and costs and, in turn, a new economic evaluation. If we can clearly demonstrate the commercial viability of a development in a low oil price environment, it should assist the farm-out process.
Outlook
All our technical and commercial work to date suggests that Darwin is a robust project, even in a low oil price environment. The principal risk for the Company over the next 12 months is that a sustained low oil price will cause further delay to our farm-out and hence funding for the next phase of operations. We have positioned the Company so that our strong balance sheet will allow us to withstand an extended period of reduced industry activity. As we move forward, we will continue to control costs, undertake good science and maintain our resolve to monetise the Darwin discovery.
Finally, Stephen Posford, 69, one of the Company's founders and a member of the Board since the Company's inception, has announced that he intends to retire from business activities and will step down from the Board prior to the AGM. Stephen has played an influential role in the development of the Company, which included the significant gas condensate discovery in 2012. On behalf of all the Directors I would like to thank Stephen for his contribution and wish him a healthy, happy and long retirement.
Harry Dobson
HARRYCAT
- 28 Feb 2018 12:27
- 245 of 245
Darwin Independent Evaluation
Borders & Southern (AIM: BOR), the London based independent oil and gas exploration company with assets offshore the Falkland Islands, announces the results of an independent evaluation of the Darwin East discovery and the adjacent Darwin West untested fault block.
Highlights
· Substantial increase in estimated resource. Un-risked Best Estimate total recoverable liquids (condensate and LPG) for Darwin East and West is 462 MMbbl.
· The geological chance of success of finding hydrocarbons in a well located on Darwin West is assessed to be 0.81.
Borders & Southern asked Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA) to perform an independent evaluation of the Darwin East gas condensate discovery along with the adjacent, technically similar fault block, Darwin West. GCA was given access to the Company's extensive 3D seismic and well data, including technical studies, interpretations and dynamic models of the reservoir.