New find boosts Tullow Oil

16th Sep 2009 07:34

Shares in Tullow Oil have been boosted by the announcement of an oil discovery at the Venus exploration well off the West African coast.The well is 40%-owned by New York-listed Anadarko Petroleum, in which Tullow has a 10% holding.'The Venus discovery confirms the existence of an active petroleum system in the basin and enhances the prospectivity of our vast West Africa acreage position,' said Bob Daniels of Anadarko.He continued: 'We are optimistic that the continued success of our West African Cretaceous program will create substantial value for our stakeholders as well as the people of West Africa through continued investment and increased activity.'Tullow has enjoyed repeated success recently with drilling programmes in Ghana and Uganda sparking rumours of a possible bid approach with Italian giant Eni the name mentioned most often.The Andarko find follows a number of other big oil discoveries that have made headlines recently. BP announced a big find in the Gulf of Mexico and BG reported another big find in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil.