ERHC's Oil and Gas Exploration Interests in Chad

ERHC has interests in three oil blocks – Block BDS 2008, Manga and Chari-Ouest Block 3 – in the Republic of Chad. ERHC is currently offering farm-in opportunities to interested parties. See more information here.

The government of Chad formally awarded the company the three oil blocks for exploration and development in June 2011, following several months of negotiation. Production Sharing Contracts were signed in July 2011.

ERHC has 100 percent of the interest in BDS 2008 and Manga. The Company has a 100 percent interest in the northern half of the Chari-Ouest Block 3. The sizes of each of the three blocks are:

• Chari-Ouest III: 4,500 square km, equal to 1,111,974 acres

• Manga: 17,000 square km, equal to 4,200,790 acres

• BDS 2008: 41,800 square km, equal to 10,329,000 acres

One of the main oil provinces in Southern Chad is the Doba Basin and the Doseo Basin. Served by the 660 mile Chad/Cameroon Pipeline and the N’Djemena Refinery opened in 2012, the area produces more than 120,000 barrels per day. ERHC’s acreage in Chari-Ouest III and BDS 2008 is situated on the edges of these proven oil basins. 

ERHC has two focus areas it plans to pursue with a rift margin play. One focus area is north of Esso’s Tega and Maku discoveries in the Doseo Basin and the other is east of and expected to have geological characteristics consistent with OPIC’s Benoy-1 discovery in the Doba Basin.

Drilling on the edge of the basins is similar to the rift margin play used by Tullow, which led to several significant discoveries, including the Ngamia #1 discovery in northwestern Kenya in 2012. In fact, comparing seismic images for ERHC’s proposed Lead 2 well location in Chad with Ngamia #1 in Kenya shows what geologists describe as a “structural analog.” There is a high degree of similarity.

In late 2013, ERHC expects to commence process management and execution of a Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometry (FTG) survey of the focus areas we have identified, which will be followed by acquiring 2D seismic in 2014. Our first exploration drilling in Chad could come as early as 2015. 

The Area:

The West African nation of Chad has proven oil reserves of 1.5 billion barrels with studies establishing the prospect of more discoveries. It is one of sub-Saharan Africa’s significant crude oil producers. Chad shares borders with Nigeria, Cameroun and Sudan, which all produce oil as well. According to the World Fact Book, a consortium led by two U.S. companies has been investing $3.7 billion to develop oil reserves - estimated at 1 billion barrels - in southern Chad. Chinese companies are also expanding exploration efforts and are currently building a 300 km pipeline and the country's first refinery. Oil production came on stream in late 2003. Chad began to export oil in 2004.

For more information about Chad, click to Wikipedia's page about the country.

More about ERHC Energy's operations:

Republic of Kenya. ERHC has a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with the Government of the Republic of Kenya on Block 11A in northwestern Kenya. The Block is in the vicinity of Block 10BB in which significant oil discoveries have recently been announced. East Africa has emerged in recent years as one of the most exciting, new oil provinces in the world with the discovery of over 1 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Uganda’s Block 1 (EA1), the Ngamia-1 oil discovery in Kenya, which is estimated to be bigger than the Ugandan discovery, and large gas discoveries, including the recent Zafarani find, offshore Tanzania. For more on ERHC's operations in Kenya, click here.

The Joint Development Zone (JDZ). ERHC has interests in six of the nine Blocks in the Joint Development Zone (JDZ), a 34,548 sq km area approximately 200 km off the coastline of Nigeria and São Tomé & Principe that is adjacent to several large petroleum discovery areas. For more on ERHC's operations in the JDZ, click here.