Strata-X Energy announced that it has secured complete ownership of the Serowe Coal Seam Gas Project (Serowe CSG) in Botswana by buying out the 25% stake it previously didn’t own.
In November 2016, SXE had entered into a farmin agreement with Magnum Gas and Power for a staged farmin to earn up to 75% of the project.
The US-based oil and gas company now owns 100% in the 273,000 acre, 1.4Tcf prospective resource after acquiring Magnum Power and Gas (MPE)’s stake in the project.
Strata-X Energy's move to pre-empt an offer from a third party to buy MPE’s stake is expected to enable the company to gain flexibility in developing the resources outside of a restrictive farmin agreement.
Located in the Kalahari Basin CSG fairway, Serowe CSG, which spans across two licenses, has a mean estimate of 1075PJ of recoverable prospective resource. Strata-X currently owns the tenements through Rhino CBM, its Botswana subsidiary.
According to Strata-X Energy board chairman Ron Prefontaine, by taking full control of Serowe CSG, the company is in a position to dictate the asset’s development at a pace that maximizes its capital.
Prefontaine added: “Strata-X plans to use the latest, ultra-low cost innovative technologies and methods to develop and convert this gas resource to reserves.
“The CSG play in the Kalahari Basin has similar attributes to the CSG plays in Queensland where reserves have grown from insignificant to several tens of TCF over the past 15 years.”
Strata-X revealed its plans to carry out environmental surveys and design an Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for its work program for its work program in 2018-2019.
After completion of the EMP, Strata-X intends to move ahead with an active drilling and testing program.
Prefontaine said: "By converting the significant gas resources in these tenements to reserves, and given the huge and diverse gas markets in Botswana and surrounding southern Africa countries, in my view, SXA has the potential to repeat the exponential growth of the early small cap Queensland CSG explorers.”