Company news in brief
ReconAfrica targets first well in JuneReconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica) plans to spuds its first well in the Damara Fold Belt in the Kavango Basin in Namibia in June this year.
It will kick-start the Canadian oil and gas company’s multi-well drilling campaign for 2024, ReconAfrica said in a statement.
All surveying activity has been completed and the company is currently busy preparing well site access roads and preparing the drilling pad.
“Additionally, the company is in the process of tendering all required equipment and services associated with the multi-well drilling campaign, which is expected to see back-to-back wells in the Damara Fold Belt,” ReconAfrica said.
“The company now anticipates potentially having oil in the shallower Mulden reservoir intervals, while the deeper Otavi target is expected to have natural gas with liquid/oil yield potential,” it said.
MTN Ghana blocks 5 mln users
MTN’s Ghana subsidiary was forced to block more than five million subscribers from its network as the country’s communications authority finalised a process to register all SIM cards.
This resulted in a 6.3% reduction in the company’s cellphone users to 26.8 million subscribers, MTN Ghana said yesterday.
The re-registration drive started in October 2021 and was completed in May last year.
Ghana’s National Communications Authority (NCA) ordered all telecommunications operators to register SIM cards and link them to the national identity card.
Ghana’s population is estimated at 34 million people.
Despite the subscriber losses, MTN Ghana said its net profit in local currency jumped 39% in the year ended December.– Fin24
Implats profit almost wiped out
Impala Platinum saw its revenue fall 25% during the six months to December amid lower platinum prices during a period of de-stocking by industrial users and weak investor sentiment. The group expects this confluence of factors to persist in the medium term.
Revenue declined to R43.4 billion, while net profit dropped 89% to R1.7 billion, from R14.8 billion a year earlier. This was even as the group increased the production and sale of its PGMs by 12% to make up for the lower prices. Production volumes were also boosted by the inclusion of Royal Bafokeng Platinum, which was acquired during the period.
“We expect 2024 to be a difficult year, characterised by anaemic precious metal consumer and investor sentiment as economic and geopolitical uncertainty linger, said Implats in a results presentation yesterday.
Since the end of December, prices of platinum, rhodium, palladium and nickel - the platinum group metals (PGM) - have declined further by between 11% and 20%.
For the six months under review, rhodium prices were 70% lower than a year before, with palladium down 41% and nickel 17% lower. The price of platinum is down only slightly, to US$924 an ounce, from US$927 an ounce a year earlier. It has since fallen to below US$890.– Fin24