PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian oil and gas major Woodside will continue to grow its portfolio of offshore petroleum assets across the African region, executive VP for global exploration, Phil Loader, said on Wednesday.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Africa Downunder conference, in Perth, Loader said that the company was steadily building its position in Africa, targeting areas that offered attractive commercial opportunities.

“We are not mortgaging the company to go exploring, we are taking a prudent approach to risk and uncertainty, and we have a world-class exploration team and are making the right decisions,” Loader said.

He noted that unlike other players in the sector, Woodside was differentiating between risk and uncertainty, with the company taking two to three years to do the initial groundwork on a possible asset before investing funding.

“We’ve looked across the entire globe at all the petroleum provinces around the world, and there are a lot of basins around the world that we don’t want to be in, for either commercial or above ground issues, and we ruled them out.

“We then identified some geological provinces that we did want to be in that was based on commercial attractiveness, places where we could harness our capabilities but also where if you find something, it can be big and impactful,” Loader said.

Another characteristic differentiating Woodside from the rest of the flock was the company’s capability to monetise gas finds.

“So if you are hunting for oil, but find gas, we can still deliver a value proposition to the host government, and a lot of other companies can’t do that.”

However, Loader warned that offshore exploration in the African region was not a risk-free environment, adding that the natural environment often offered more competition than other oil explorers.

“Our competitor isn’t Exxon or Shell, its mother nature, and she can be pretty rough sometimes,” he said.

Woodside currently holds some 5 300 km² of acreage offshore Gabon, owning a 40% interest in two exploration blocks. The company also holds a 35% interest in the SNE oil block offshore Senegal, one of the largest global deep-water oil discoveries since 2014, as well as some 47 519 km² in acreage offshore Morocco.