Wentworth Resources abandons well in East Africa

Wentworth, which operates in the Rovuma Delta Basin of coastal southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique, said it had made a natural gas discovery at its Tembo-1 well.

But it said the Onshore Rovuma Partners group did not plan any further evaluation of the Tembo well at the moment and would assess all the data recovered from the well to determine whether the find was commercially viable.

It said the Tembo-1 well had been plugged and abandoned and the drilling rig was now being mobilized to the Kifaru-1 well location.

It is expected that the Kifaru-1 well, which is about 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) south of Wentworth's Mnazi Bay Concession in Tanzania, will spud in the first three months of 2015.

Wentworth holds a 13.64% participation interest in exploration operations and an 11.59% participation interest in development and production operations of the Rovuma onshore concession in Mozambique. Anadarko Petroleum Corporation is the operator.

Executive chairman Bob McBean said: "The Tembo-1 well was an exciting well and has provided additional information about the Rovuma basin. We look forward to our continued exploration in the onshore Rovuma block with the spudding of the Kifaru-1 well. With our imminent gas production in southern Tanzania on track, 2015 should be a transformational year for Wentworth."

Shares in Wentworth fell 3p to 28.5p at 14:45 in London.