PURA VIDA ENERGY
Pura Vida Energy (ASX:PVD) holds the Mazagan Offshore Area off the Atlantic coast of Morocco and is looking to acquire other projects to build a diversified portfolio.
by Bevis Yeo
Pura Vida Energy (ASX:PVD) has joined the ranks of oil and gas companies targeting the highly-prospective frontier region off Morocco with its billion-barrel potential Mazagan area located off Morocco.
The company closed a oversubscribed initial public offering of 20 million shares priced at A$0.20 each to raise A$4 million to fund exploration of Mazagan.The company will hit the ASX boards at 1pm AEDT on Tuesday 14 February, with around 38.78 million shares on issue.Chasing elephantsThe 10,900 square kilometre Mazagan area contains the Toubkal prospect, which has mean resources of 790 million barrels of oil, that Pura Vida said is comparable to the billion barrel Jubilee field in Ghana – the largest oil discovery in West Africa in the past decade.It is located close to the Cap Juby field and covered by 3570 square kilometres of modern 3D seismic that has identified several leads and prospects supported by direct hydrocarbon indicators.Activity in the region has also been picking up with Jubilee operator Kosmos Energy acquiring or farming into two nearby permits last year while fellow Australian Tangers Petroleum (ASX:TPT) holds the Tarfaya block to the south.While Toubkal is the single largest prospect in Mazagan, the five other top-ranked prospects bring total mean resource in the permit up to 1.1 billion barrels of oil.Pura Vida’s A$6.6 million cash hoard (consisting of A$2.6 million in cash and A$4 million from the initial public offering) is enough to fund the initial two-year work program at Mazagan, repay shareholder loans and for working capital.For the first two years, the company is required to invest just over A$3.6 million to reprocess 3000 square kilometres of 3D seismic and acquire 50 ocean bed drop cores and geological studies.Looking ahead, Pura Vida will be required to drill at least one exploration well in the second two-year exploration term and another two wells during the third four-year term. All three wells have a minimum depth of 3000 metres.Pura Vida holds a 75% working interest in Mazagan.
