The Province January 20, 2013 Don't know if this was posted yet -
The ProvinceJanuary 20, 2013
For one oil-and-gas exploration junior focused on onshore frontier areas of Africa, success has required an ability to move quickly to take advantage of new opportunities on the continent.
Simba Energy is one of numerous companies active in African oil and gas, the only remaining region with sizeable assets available to outside investors.
Simba CEO Hassan Hassan said his company had a very successful year in 2012. "We acquired three highly prospective oil-and-gas concessions in Chad next to concessions already held by two much larger companies, Griffiths Energy and Glencore International."
"Two of Simba's concessions border Griffiths Energy's blocks, which have proven reserves and are in the same basin as our blocks," Hassan says. "Glencore paid US $300 million for a 25 percent interest in the two Griffiths Energy blocks, which are only a few miles away from our blocks."
There is an existing oil pipeline with excess capacity that crosses Simba's property, which is a tremendous advantage in getting the company's oil quickly to international markets.
"The discovery last year of oil in Kenya also assisted us in attracting the attention of many investors, particularly institutional investors in Europe and Asia."
"The recent discoveries have made Kenya one of the most exciting exploration areas in the world and we are very fortunate to have an excellent position there," Hassan says.
In 2012, Simba also completed its first exploration program on Block 2A in Kenya, using a leading edge technology called passive seismic.
"The results confirmed several of the leads from the historical seismic shot by Amoco and Chevron as well as indicating a new 150 square kilo-metre prospect" says Hassan.
"Through a lot of hard work, we now have several blocks in Africa across various countries and in different basins, which is quite an achievement for a small company. We have proven we can compete with larger companies when it comes to acquiring assets. We are now in the process of building a world-class exploration team and we intend to demonstrate that we are also great at finding oil."
Being a "first mover" in African regions allows Simba to target regions and basins, which have billion barrel potential but are not on most other companies' radar screens. An example would be Simba's acquisition of Block 2A in Kenya.
"Our main strength is that we are able to "sniff out" excellent oil and gas prospects in Africa and acquire them at a very low cost," explains Hassan.
Now that Africa is becoming the hottest oil play in the world, there is now a scramble to get oil-and-gas assets in Africa by big and small companies and this is raising the expectations and demands of many African governments.
Simba's goal is to grow the company and to be a substantial producer of oil in Africa in the next few years.
Simba Energy will be at booth 1835 at the VRIC 2013.
Read more: https://www.theprovince.com/business/Simba+Energy+fuels+finds+Africa/7845603/story.html#ixzz2K52WbC9A