Afentra and its partners in block 3/05 off Angola have decided to immediately move the Borr Grid rig to the Impala-2 well, whose drilling is due to begin in mid-October 2026 for targeted first production in January 2027, the company announced on October 12.
Drilling and completion of Impala-2 are expected to take about eighty days, with work due to finish in December. Afentra targets an initial gross flow rate close to 4,000 barrels per day. This output remains an operational forecast and depends on how the drilling proceeds and on the characteristics actually encountered in the reservoir.
The partners will fund the well directly, instead of using the carry mechanism planned previously. A gross cost cap reduced to $60 million should nonetheless protect Afentra against overruns, according to the company. The detailed terms for sharing this cost between partners were not published in the operational update.
The new sequence postpones the sidetrack of the Pacassa SW well until after Impala-2 is completed. Pacassa SW intersected 136 net metres of oil-bearing reservoir, but operational problems limited access to the well and make a new drilling trajectory necessary.
First production from Pacassa SW is now expected in the first quarter of 2027, after tie-in to existing facilities. Afentra estimates that reinterpretation of the data could confirm up to about 70 million barrels of additional oil resources. This volume remains the company's own estimate and does not constitute certified reserves or acquired production.
The change in sequence allows the rig to be deployed to a well ready to be drilled while the equipment needed for Pacassa SW is prepared. It does, however, postpone the conversion of the Pacassa discovery into production and concentrates the start-up schedule for both wells at the beginning of 2027.
Block 3/05 is subject to a redevelopment programme aimed at increasing recovery from fields already in production. Afentra had said in September that the block's average gross output reached 19,379 barrels per day in the first half of 2026, before rising to 20,897 barrels per day in July and August.