Technical challenges continue to delay oil and gas explorer Rex International’s drilling campaign at Sèmè Field in Benin.
In a Dec 24 announcement, Rex says that production is unable to take place in 2025 as planned due to “further significant technical issues”. The mainboard-listed company says that drilling operations are “continuing at the moment to attempt to resolve these issues”.
Responding to a request from The Edge Singapore for more details on the technical challenges and the impact of the delay, REX responded that it “has no further information to share at this point” and will provide further updates in due course.
On Nov 19, Rex first announced delays to the drilling with commencement of production postponed to end-December. The company had announced on Aug 5 that Akrake Petroleum Benin had spudded the first of three wells at the field, marking the start of a 100-day work development programme.
Akrake, an indirect subsidiary of Rex, earned a production sharing contract in December 2023 for operatorship and a 76% working interest in Block 1, Seme Field in Benin. Akrake is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lime Petroleum Holding AS, which is more than 89% owned by Rex.
Akrake has plans to redevelop the Sèmè Field using Rex’s “proven low-cost” production system, which includes a jack-up mobile production unit (MOPU) and a floating, storage and offloading (FSO) unit. The company aims to restart production and maximise oil recovery through the use of horizontal wells and “modern completion technology” for effective water control. In March 2025, an independent qualified person’s report (QPR) estimated that the field has 10.9 million stock tank barrels of proved and probable reserves.
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Sèmè Field is part of Block 1 in Benin which spans 551 sq km over waters around 20 to 30 metres deep. Discovered by Union Oil in 1969, Sèmè Field was first developed by Norwegian oil company, Saga Petroleum. It had produced around 22 million barrels of oil from 1982 to 1998 before low oil prices caused production to stop prematurely.
For the six months ended June 30, Rex reported revenue of around US$154.5 million, a y-o-y decrease of around 2.6% from approximately US$158.7 million. Gross profit declined by more than 40% from approximately US$62.7 million to slightly more than US$37.1 million, while loss after tax widened to more than US$29.6 million from around US$10.5 million.
Shares in Rex have declined 8.9 cents, or nearly 40%, from 22.5 cents on June 23 to 13.6 cents on Dec 23. As at around 4.25 pm on Dec 24, shares in the counter remain flat.
