West Africa oil potential growing

March 28 (UPI) -- After posting a perfect record in discoveries off the West African coast, Australian energy company FAR Ltd. said its footprint was expanding with a new buy-in.

Working through a subsidiary, FAR Ltd. said it was buying into basins off the coast of Gambia from ERIN Energy Corp., which has headquarters in Houston. The Australian company under the terms of the agreement, which still requires government approval, agrees to fund up to $8 million in exploration and production costs.

The two Gambian blocks combine for an estimated 1 billion barrels of unrisked barrels of oil and are in close proximity to FAR's SNE oil field offshore Senegal, which was considered the largest oil find ever made when announced in 2014.

FAR Managing Director Cath Norman said the deal with ERIN gives her company a dominant position in the Mauritania-Senegal-Guinea-Bissau basin. With eight regional oil discoveries so far, "the MSGB basin has emerged as an exploration 'hot spot' attracting the attention of the world's oil majors," she said in a statement.

Gambia is a minor player with exports emerging only in 2015. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the country exported an average 81,000 barrels of oil per day last year.

ERIN entered Gambian waters in 2012 and described the region as highly prospective given the proximity to other nearby discoveries like SNE and the larger Jubilee oil field off the coast of Ghana. Through its partnership with FAR, seismic surveys offshore Gambia are planned this year in order to get a better understanding of the reserve potential.

Drilling is planned for late 2018.