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West African oil reserves revised upward

African Petroleum gets good news about Ivorian, Liberian acreage.

By Daniel J. Graeber

LONDON, Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Junior explorer African Petroleum Corp. said Monday it revised its reserve estimate for operations off the western African coast upward by more than 50 percent.

African Petroleum Chief Executive Officer Stuart Lake said he was "delighted" with the results of a third-party assessment of reserves off the coast of Liberia and Ivory Coast. An assessment from independent petroleum consultant ERC Equipoise Ltd. resulted in a net 58 percent increase in the offshore reserve potential.

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Total mean risked oil reserves offshore Ivory Coast were estimated to have increased by 118 percent, with Liberian reserve estimates increasing by 33 percent with the new of four new reviewed prospects.

French energy company Total last year made an oil discovery while drilling in the deep waters offshore Ivory Coast. In 2013, the French company said some of the reserves off the Ivorian coast may be contiguous with those in Ghana, hosts to the giant Jubilee oil field. Jubilee could eventually produce more than 125,000 barrels of oil per day.

African Petroleum, which has headquarters in London, said it has contracts for further assessments of its acreage in the waters off the western African coast. The company said it was "confident that it will see a significant uplift in the updated numbers."

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