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Vanco Energy Company
- Thirty years of frontier international exploration
Vanco Energy Company is an independent oil and gas company based
in Houston, Texas with principal holdings
offshore deepwater Africa. For over fifty years, Vanco Founder and
Chairman Gene Van Dyke has involved Vanco and its predecessors in
domestic and international exploration and production activity.
From 1953 to 1973, the company concentrated on North Central Texas,
the Texas Gulf Coast and South Louisiana. In 1973, the company shifted
its focus entirely to international offshore exploration in the
emerging North Sea frontier, initiating the company's twenty-three
year history in the North Sea which resulted in several significant
oil and gas discoveries offshore The Netherlands.
During the early 1990s, Vanco embarked on a new strategy to focus
on frontier exploration in the deepwater regions of the world. In
1996, recognizing the immense possibilities offshore Africa, Vanco
began an aggressive program of acquiring and evaluating frontier
deepwater opportunities. High potential contract areas were secured
in Gabon (1997), Morocco (1998, 2001), Côte d'Ivoire (1999),
Senegal (1999), Equatorial Guinea (2000), Namibia (2000), Madagascar
(2001) and Ghana (2002). In April 2006, Vanco won the right to negotiate
Ukraine's first Production Sharing Agreement covering the Prykerchenska
area, offshore Black Sea.
Vanco's deepwater acreage covers the equivalent of a substantial
portion of the active deepwater exploration area in the Gulf of
Mexico.
During the evaluation of its West Africa
acreage over the last ten years, Vanco has become an industry leader
in managing deepwater frontier exploration programs. Among its offshore
achievements:
- Vanco conducted 11 reconnaissance and detail 2D seismic surveys,
totaling more than 25,700 line kilometers and employing such leading
contractors as CGG, Fugro, TGS Nopec, Veritas and WesternGeco.
- Vanco operated eight 3D seismic surveys, totaling more than
18,000 square kilometers.
- Vanco operated two deepwater wells in Africa, notably:
- Morocco Shark B-1 (2004) - Vanco's first deepwater (2,125
meters) well as Operator was drilled trouble-free to a total
depth of 3,976 meters.
- Côte d'Ivoire San Pedro-1 (2005) - Drilled trouble-free
in water depth 1,735 meters to a total depth of 3,100 meters.
- As a measure of the quality of its acreage portfolio and prospect
generation skills, Vanco has been joined by numerous international
oil companies and NOC's, including BG Group, CNOOC, Devon, Eni,
ExxonMobil, Kerr-McGee, Nexen, Norsk Hydro, Oil India Limited,
ONGC Videsh, Petronas, Repsol, Shell, Sinopec, SK Corporation,
Total, Transocean Sedco Forex, and Unocal.
In 2007-2008, the record of achievement continues as Vanco engages
in new deepwater exploration activity, including:
- The acquisition of 4,000 square kilometers
3D seismic data in Côte d'Ivoire and Ukraine.
- The drilling of three exploration wells
in Ghana, the Ukrainian Black Sea and Côte d'Ivoire.
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