Madagascar : Ambilobe and Ampasindava
Location: Offshore NW Madagascar, Indian Ocean
Area: 15.600 km2 and 9,860 km2
Sterling Equity: 30%(Op. Ambilobe), Exxon 70% (Op. Ampasindava)
Sterling holds a 30% carried interest in two licenses in Madagascar; the Ambilobe and Ampasindava PSC’s, which are approximately 15,600km2 and 9,860km2 respectively. Sterling is operator of the Ambilobe PSC whilst ExxonMobil operates Ampasindave PSC. The licenses were awarded in July 2004 and have an effective date of 29 November 2004. The total exploration term in each licence is 8 years and in the event of a commercial discovery a 25 year production licence will be granted.
The Ambilobe and Ampasindava PSC’s cover a very large under-explored area of offshore northwest Madagascar in which all of the geological elements for a working petroleum system are believed to be present. Madagascar has seen a steady increase in exploration activity since 2004, when ExxonMobil farmed-in to Vanco’s Majunga exploration licence, which lies directly to the south of Sterling’s Ampasindava PSC in the Majunga Basin.
Operational activity in 2006 has seen the acquisition of piston cores, heat-flow measurements, and more than 4,000km of new 2D seismic data. Geological and geophysical studies are ongoing to integrate this data with existing work and to high grade the area for further seismic acquisition and drilling.
