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Bowleven Plc: assessing the investment case
Sunday, Feb 13 2011 by marben100
I first came across Bowleven (LON:BLVN) , as a potentially interesting investment, at the Oilbarrel Conference in Sep 2010. [1] What made it interesting to me at that time was:
- A strong management team, with key players being ex-Cairn [2] [3]and ex-BG [4]
- A decent cash position & sound, tested assets [see "Assets"]
- Partnership with a big player, in the shape of Vitol [see "Vitol Agreement" below]
- Lots of potential upside from drilling, with the major Sapele-1 well due to spud shortly
Against that, I had to balance the political risk of operating in Cameroon and risks associated with commercialising existing discoveries, meaning that they can currently only be classed as "contingent resources", as opposed to 2P reserves. Anyhoo... I decided to take a punt in October 2010 when, despite Sapele-1 having already spudded and initial results being expected soon, the share price had remained remarkably subdued. That proved a good decision with my original punt having now double-bagged.
Long story short, I believe that the market has misunderstood the company's latest RNS concerning the Sapele-1 well and that there may be considerable excitement to come - hence I have topped up today (Wednesday 9th Feb), with the SP well off its recent peak. AIUI one rig is standing by, waiting for government approval to sidetrack Sapele-1, in order to appraise a Tertiary oil discovery made in the original well and another, more capable rig, is on its way. That rig will drill a step-out well into deeper, more "challenging" Cretaceous prospects.
Lots more drilling is expected over the course of 2011 with those rigs, and Bowleven has the cash to fund it.
I will start by discussing the Sapele-1 well and then come back to discuss already tested assets that (at least to some extent) underpin Bowleven's current market cap. of £716m, irrespective of Sapele-1 results.
Sapele-1
Well/News Timeline
Sapele-1 is the second well drilled by Bowlen in its shallow-water MLHP-5 Block offshore Cameroon (75% equity interest). The first, D-1r well in 2007 made a gas-condensate discovery, flowing 25mmscf/d + 1,400bopd condensate in the Tertiary horizon. Following 3D seismic acquired during 2010, Sapele-1 is designed to intersect multiple prospects in both Tertiary and Cretaceous strata. It was spudded on 14th September 2010 [5] .
- On 9th November, Bowleven announced two Tertiary discoveries [6] .
- On 25th November, an increase to the discovered Tertiary net pay was announced [7] .
- Following a strong SP rise, Bowleven placed 22m shares @ 327p (11% dilution) raising ~US$110m and securing ample funding for the 2011 explo programme on 26th November [8] . Shrewd move. ;0)
- On 10th January, Sapele-1 reached a TD of 4,529m in the Cretaceous. A gas-condensate discovery in the Cretaceous and a STOIIP estimate for the previously intersected Deep Omicron Tertiary target of P90 65mmbbls - P10 430mmbbls were announced [9] .
During this period, the SP rose fairly steadily from a base of around 160p, peaking at over 400p. It appears that there was some disappointment with the last announcement, probably due to the relatively thin pay in the "Cross-cut" objective and the Cretaceous (so far) only yielding gas-condensate and not oil, and the SP has subsequently declined.
Then, this Monday 7th February, Bowleven released the following announcement [10] :
Bowleven, the West Africa focused oil and gas exploration group traded on AIM, announces that the Sapele-1 exploration well drilling in the Douala Basin, offshore Cameroon has been drilled to a total depth (TD) of 4,733 metres. Drilling was halted due to technical limitations after encountering a high pressure gas reservoir in the Cretaceous. The bottom hole section has been cemented and is now being abandoned in advance of planned appraisal drilling.
Update
· Oil, condensate and gas confirmed as present in the Cretaceous and the well may now have encountered a significant hydrocarbon column at TD.
· Proposed forward plan includes appraisal drilling and well testing to further evaluate Tertiary discoveries.
· Additional rig secured for drilling up to four wells on the Etinde Permit; expected on contract towards end February 2011.
Drilling update
The Sapele-1 well location was selected to intersect multiple independent exploration targets from the proven Tertiary fairway down to the deeper Cretaceous fairway from a single location.
On 10 January 2011, Bowleven advised that further Cretaceous targets had been identified beneath the original planned target depth of the well (4,450 metres) and the plan was to deepen the well. The well was drilled to a TD of 4,733 metres before drilling was halted due to a rapid influx of very high pressure gas. Consequently, logging of the interval was not possible and the bottom hole section is being abandoned. Based on an initial analysis of the major step change in pressure encountered and the interpretation of the seismic, it is considered that the well may have encountered a significant hydrocarbon column in the Cretaceous.
Further analysis of mudlogging and wireline data, together with gas chromatograph ratio analysis, has confirmed oil shows were encountered within thin sands in the upper part of the Cretaceous Epsilon Complex.
Further interpretation and calibration of the well and seismic data is required to assess fully the implications for Cretaceous volumetrics...
The market didn't seem to like this much at all, and the SP has continued declining since, now standing at around 333p.
It is possible, however, that the market has got it wrong. Firstly, judging by comment I have read, including those by some analysts, "high pressure gas influx" has been widely interpreted as meaning that the well has just found gas in this deeper Cretaceous section. However, as those of us that followed the sad Macondo saga know, a high pressure gas influx doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't oil there too!
Considerably more detail/information is contained in a presentation [11] that Bowleven gave at a Credit Suisse energy conference, the same day as the announcement. This includes diagrams that help to understand the well context and sequence. However, the most interesting information was in an analyst/investor conference call that Bowleven held and which I highlighted here.
Analyst/Investor Teleconference
I took the following notes from the telecon:
- All targets confirmed hydrocarbon bearing
- Tertiary “unequivocal”
- Lower Omicron gas-condensate 20m net pay 290bcf GIIP
- Deep Omicron oil 20m net pay 21% porosity 217mmbbls OIIP P50 estimated
- Gas condensate in base of Cretaceous Epsilon Complex 4m net pay 13% porosity
- Deeper potential – intended to drill on
- Since established (from logs) that there was oil in thin sands in upper Cretaceous Epsilon Complex, more work needed (encouraging)
- Beneath Epsilon, cemented liner, drilled on in 6” hole to 15,529’ – extreme pressure found resulting in kick. Bottom hole pressure calculated as 15,180psi, step change of 4,500psi from previous value – extreme HPHT.
- V pleased with outcome to date but unable to log bottom section properly
- Major cement needed downhole to control well after this, so impossible to perforate Deep Omicron. Significant flow expected from Deep Omicron, given quality of logged reservoir sands.
- Intend to sidetrack to location 2km from current well to appraise Omicron with current rig. In talks with Cameroon govt at present to agree this.
- Intend to test Cretaceous downdip, 7-8km step-out, with new, more capable, rig as its first task.
- Sidetrack will take 50days from start (once govt agrees & ops restart)
- Cretaceous step-out expected to be 60 day well.
- Believe acreage may be a fairway - need to demonstrate connectivity. "May have a tiger by the tail."
- Considerable interpretation work to be done to determine further drilling locations.
- Will be expecting extension to licence beyond 2011 to allow for appraisal period.
My key "takeaways" from this are:
- We have an excellent discovery in the Deep Omicron target, maybe ITRO 100mmbbls recoverable, plus a "bonus" gas volume in the shallower target.
- In this well, thin oil-bearing sands were discovered in the Epsilon Complex. If MLHP-5 contains a "play fairway", as hypothesised, they may be thicker at a different location
- The 4,500psi step change indicates something very serious going on in the deep Cretaceous (below Epsilon Complex). There were clearly serious well control problems, given the need for emergency cementing to kill the well.
- Given that the deeper Cretaceous section couldn't be logged properly (due to the well control issues), we don't know what hydrocarbons are present there.
- A 7-8km step-out downdip is a very interesting prospect. I presume that by going downdip, they are more likely to encounter oil (or water!), as gas/condensate will tend to migrate updip? Moreover, if they DO find oil 7-8km away it adds strong weight to the connectivity/play fairway theory and we'll have a very exciting discovery on our hands.
- If the "fairway" theory is correct, Bowleven may have acreage holding prospects much larger than analysts are currently gving credit for.
- Exciting drilling should start and be announced soon: the sidetrack to flow test the Omicron targets is just awaiting government approval, so could be announced any time. The other rig seems likely to arrive and spud the stepout well next month (but I think 60 days drilling time is optimistic, given the HPHT issues - hope it doesn't turn into another TGD!).