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Pura Vida
www.puravidaenergy.com.au
Pura Vida Energy has a 75 per cent interest in the Mazagan Offshore Area. Mazagan is located off the coast of Morocco in the Atlantic. We have modern, high quality 3D seismic data over the block with independently certified potential resources of more than a billion barrels of oil. The Toubkal prospect alone has a potential resource range of 180 million to 1.670 billion barrels of oil, with a mean estimate of 790 million barrels of oil. Toubkal is an analogue of the billion barrel Jubilee field in Ghana – the largest oil discovery made in West Africa in the past decade.
Pura Vida: Mazagan resource upgraded to 3.2 billion barrels
7:39 am by Ian Lyall
Pura Vida Energy (ASX:PVD) this morning weighed in with a significant resource upgrade to its Mazagan permit off the coast of Morocco.
It rises to 3.2 billion barrels of oil following an independent review carried out by Resource Investment Strategy Consultants from 2.6 billion barrels previously.
RISC’s revised estimates for the Lower Cretaceous prospects following technical work that focused on the recently added deeper water 2D seismic data.
Most of the potential resources reported to date comprised the Miocene prospects whereas many of the company’s peers in the region have focused their efforts on the Lower Cretaceous.
“[Our] resource estimates for Lower Cretaceous prospects have been upgraded and new leads have been recognised as a major prospective play fairway in the deep water of Morocco due to the presence of reservoirs encountered by wells and this is very positive for the future development of the Mazagan asset,” said Pura Vida managing director Damon Neaves.
The large Toubkal structure remains the most likely target of the company’s first well, Neaves he added.
The Perth-based explorer owns 75 per cent of Mazagan, with the remainder held by the Morocco state oil company.
Morocco has become a magnet to the likes of Total, Repsol, Anadarko and Kosmos because of its favourable fiscal regime, which is one of the most accommodating in the world.
The government take is minimal when compared with hydrocarbon-rich neighbours Algeria and Libya.
The state receives 25 per cent of any project and a 5 per cent royalty if gas is produced, which rises to 10 per cent for oil. An unprecedented ten-year corporate tax holiday is offered upon discovery.
This means the government take is never more than 35 per cent. Contrast this with Algeria, where the authorities take 92 per cent and you can see why foreign investment is flooding into Morocco.
Not that Pura Vida’s interest could be placed in this category. By far the largest feature of the Mazagan permit area is the Toubkal stratigraphic trap, with mean unrisked prospective resources of 790 million barrels and an estimated chance of success of one-in-five.
City broker N+1 Brewin (formerly Brewin Dolphin) said its closest comparator company is ASX and AIM listed Tangiers.
However Pura Vida is valued at a significant discount to Tangiers and many of its rivals in Morocco when assessing their respective resource bases.
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