Interpretation of the newly acquired seismic data has extended the potential of the Ntorya appraisal area, Aminex said in a press release, and management has further increased its resource estimate to 65 Bcm (2.3 Tcf) by combining the Ntorya discovery with the adjacent Likonde prospect in its Ruvuma production-sharing contract (PSC) in southeastern Tanzania.

The new interpretation has shown that an additional target exists for an appraisal well that would intersect the Ntorya gas and condensate sands encountered in Ntorya-1 and an extension of the Lower Tertiary sands that were found to have oil and gas shows in the earlier Likonde-1 well to the north.

This additional target has further increased the recently announced resource potential from 54 Bcm (1.9 Tcf) to 65 Bcm.

The Likonde-1 well penetrated 97 m (318 ft) of net sand with an average porosity of 17% within a 316-m (1,037-ft) gross Lower Tertiary sand sequence with hydrocarbon shows and a deeper Jurassic zone containing 250 m (820 ft) of stacked sandstones with extensive oil and gas shows.

The new seismic interpretation, using the recently acquired higher quality 2-D seismic data, shows that the Likonde prospect comprises two distinct channel sands of which the southern channel extends over the mapped Ntorya Cretaceous gas sand. Ntorya-1, drilled in 2012, did not encounter this Likonde Tertiary sand channel, which lies just north of the well, but discovered a deeper Cretaceous gas sand that tested 566 Mcm/d (20MMcf/d) with 139 bbl of associated condensate.

Participants in the Ruvuma PSC are Ndovu Resources Ltd. (Aminex) with 75% (operator) and Solo Oil Plc with 25%.