Dominion

=Overview=

Dominion Petroleum Limited is an independent energy company with headquarters based in Hamilton, Bermuda. It is devoted to and focuses on exploring for fresh oil and gas reserves in East and Central Africa.

=Global Operations=

On February 1, 2012, Dominion Petroleum Limited started operating as a subsidiary of the London-based Ophir Energy Plc.

=Africa Operations=

In 2010, the company signed a letter of intent with Oil and Gas  Exploration Cracow (OGEC), subject to the approval of the Ugandan government for a rig to drill Ngaji-1 on Exploration Area Block 4B (EA4B), Dominion’s first exploration well in Uganda. In October 2011, the London-listed Dominion Petroleum Limited had exploration licences for oil fields in the Congo, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, sold a 20 percent stake in deepwater Block 7 in Tanzania to Mubadala Oil & Gas, a division of Abu Dhabi’s Investment Fund.

=East Africa Operations=

In 2009, Dominion Petroleum Limited signed a Production Sharing Contract with the Uganda government to explore a 510 square km area. Three years later in 2012 Dominion’s bid to sell its entire assets in the country to Ophir Energy met stiff opposition from the Uganda government, which said it was not notified of the sale. In 2011, Dominion entered into a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) with the Kenyan Ministry of Energy in Nairobi for Block L9 in the Lamu basin in offshore Kenya. In 2010, a Presidential Decree ratified a PSC for Block 5 in the Albertine Graben area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) operated by Dominion’s and its partner, Soco International Plc. The Block 5 partnership consists of Dominion Petroleum Congo SPRL with 46.75 per cent, SOCO Exploration Production DRC SPRL holding 38.25 per cent , and the state oil company of the DRC Congolaise des Hydrocarbures (“COHYDRO”) with a 15 percent stake.

=Tanzania Operations= In 2006, Dominion Oil and Gas Limited, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Dominion Petroleum Limited was awarded an exploration permit for (part) of the Selous basin. Dominion holds three Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) in onshore Tanzania, namely Mandawa, Kisangire and Selous. These PSAs cover the Mandawa basin and half of the Selous basin (the Selous PSA being in the southern part of the Selous basin and Kisangire being in the northern part of the Selous basin). Besides the PSAs, Dominion Petroleum also has four licences. In 2011, the Tanzania government approved Dominion’s sale of 20 per cent of its working interest in deepwater Block 7, thus opening the way for Mubadala Oil & Gas, a division of Abu Dhabi’s Investment Fund, to inject $20 million into exploration activities in the block. In accordance with agreed upon terms, the company was expected to spend an estimated $71 million over the licence period conducting seismic surveys and drilling exploration wells. During the first four years of the first phase, the company was required to drill one well and acquire 500 line kilometres of seismic data.

=References=