Canadian Overseas Petroleum shuts down Liberian asset to focus on Nigeria

AIM-listed firm Canadian Overseas Petroleum (COPL) filed its third-quarter results on Monday, issuing a brief trading update on its West African operations in the process.

COPL and its partner in block LB-13 offshore Liberia both elected not to enter into a third exploration period at the asset, and eventually opted to surrender the rights to the license, resulting in a total impairment to its exploration and evaluation assets of $15.6m.

The group also noted it had continued to work with its investment bankers to source funds for the appraisal and development of its OPL 226 project in Nigeria and that it planned to begin drilling of an appraisal well in "early 2018".

Arthur Millholland, chief executive of COPL, said the appraisal programme would likely be the first step towards a full field development project.

"We continue to focus on developing our attractive oil appraisal and development project in OPL 226, offshore Nigeria,” he said.

"The initial work program will be to drill an appraisal well to the NOA-1 oil discovery and place it on production through an Early Production Scheme. This would be followed by the drilling of up to three additional similar wells on the NOA Structure."

As of 1230 GMT, shares had dropped 9.30% to 0.975p.