FAR and its partner Svenska Petroleum Exploration have completed negotiations with Petroguin, the national oil company of Guinea-Bissau, on revisions to the terms of the offshore Sinapa and Esperanca licenses, Petroleum Africa reported.

According to Offshore, the new terms negotiated state that FAR and Svenska Petroleum Exploration will hold a 21.42% participating and paying interest in the permits, which is considered an increase from the 15% participating and 21.42% paying interests that were previously announced.

The new terms indicate that Petroguin will no longer have a participating interest in the joint venture prior to a commercial discovery. Once a commercial discovery is made, Petroguin will have a reduced participating and paying interest of 10%, and FAR and Svenska will have interests of 19.28% and 70.71% respectively.

Moreover, Petroleum Africa informed that the new license terms negotiated cover more favorable arrangements for deepwater investment, including a reduction to production royalty rates payable to the government.

These changes reflect the joint venture’s new strategy to focus on the shelf edge areas of the Sinapa and Esperanca, which display a similar geological setting to offshore Senegal and FAR’s enormous SNE field discovery.