Sierra Leone Sees 44 Billion Oil Resource

Sierra Leone has intensified its search for hydrocarbons offshore with plans to hand over nine exploration blocks to a major African independent in a bid to exploit its estimated 44 billion barrels oil resource.

Foday Mansary, the director general of Sierra Leone’s Petroleum Directorate, said recently that the total oil in place in the African nation is estimated to be 44 billion, with 15-20 billion barrels recoverable. The country expects to drill an exploration well in 2025.

The report comes at a time Lagos-based FA Oil is galvanizing interest in its six promising offshore blocks, which it says has potential to yield three billion barrels of oil equivalent.

FA Oil has stepped up the search for financial and technical partners for its six offshore oil blocks off the coast of Sierra Leone, with the opening of Data Rooms in Houston and London.

The oil company owned by Billionaire Folunsho Alakija was awarded six offshore oil blocks by the Sierra Leonean government in December 2023.The Petroleum License Agreement No 001.23 covers blocks 53, 54, 55, 71, 72 and 73 spanning 8,160 km2. The blocks are located in water depths ranging from 50m to 3,500m.

The oil blocks were included in the fifth Sierra Leone licensing round that closed at the end of September 2023. The acreages are covered with 3797 line km of 2D TGS seismic of 2000-2017 vintage.

License No 001/23 is highly promising as previous survey revealed Sabu-1 (35km to N) had multiple oil and gas shows and FIT data supported a large residual oil column but failed trap. Also it had multiple reservoir intervals in Pre, Syn and Post rift reservoirs. Sidewall cores recorded porosity of between 13 and 32%.