Taken from our 'New Kid on the Block' news section, the fllowing is a review of new country entrants that featured in the fourth quarter of 2019. 

• Europa Oil & Gas announced the award of a new Exploration Permit (‘Inezgane Offshore Permit’), covering an area of 11,228 sqkm in the Agadir Basin, offshore Morocco.  
• Columbus Energy has signed a Production Sharing Contract with Staatsolie for the Weg Naar Zee Block ("WNZ"), onshore Suriname. The company intends to conduct a petrophysical update of the existing well data, perform a detailed reservoir evaluation study and perform an Extended Well Test ("EWT") of at least two separate stratigraphic oil bearing zones, with the intent of submitting a development plan for WNZ including those oil sands deemed commercial as soon as practical.
• RWE Renewables has acquired a pipeline of up to 4 offshore wind projects in Poland as part of its ambitions to enter the Polish offshore market and grow its offshore operations across Europe. 
• MOL reached an agreement with Chevron Global Ventures, Ltd and Chevron BTC Pipeline, Ltd to acquire their non-operated E&P and mid-stream interests in Azerbaijan, including a 9.57% stake in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (“ACG”) oil field, and an effective 8.9% stake in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (“BTC”) pipeline that transports the crude to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, for total consideration of USD 1.57bn with an effective date of 1 January 2019. Once completed, this transaction will make MOL the third largest field partner in ACG.
• Graham Stewart, former Chairman of Faroe Petroleum, is one of the founders of Longboat Energy, a new North Sea oil and gas company who plan to raise £10 million through the admission of shares on London’s Alternative Investment Market. Longboat Energy's strategy is to fast track the creation of a new full-cycle North Sea oil and gas company. The strategy to achieve this will initially be through the acquisition of assets where the management team can add value through subsurface and operational improvements, follow-up deal opportunities and near-field exploration; and by value creation through the drill bit.
• Jadestone Energy executed a sale and purchase agreement (“SPA”) with OMV New Zealand Limited, a subsidiary of OMV, to acquire an operated 69% interest in the Maari Project, shallow water offshore New Zealand, for a total headline cash consideration of US$50 million. The Company intends to establish New Zealand as an extension to its Australia core area. As another maturing hydrocarbon basin in the region, additional opportunities are likely to become available which fit the Company’s strategy to acquire and reinvest into mid-life producing assets. Through a mix of capturing synergies with its existing business, optimising reserves recovery, and additional inorganic growth, the Company is targeting building a portfolio of assets with an ultimate production base of 15 to 20 mboe/d in New Zealand.
• All third-party approvals have been achieved for ADX Energy to complete the RAG Production Acquisition and to now become a producer and the operator of production assets in Austria. 
• Apache secured the SP2 block offshore in the San Pedro de Macorís basin for Oil and Gas E&P in the Dominican Republic First Oil and Gas Licensing Round.
• PGNiG has signed an agreement with ERU Management Services providing for joint gas exploration and production operations in the western part of Ukraine, close to the Polish border. An exploration well will first be drilled to a depth of up to 2,500 metres, and geophysical surveys will be performed to select further well locations. 
• Eni has re-entered Albania following the signing of a Production Sharing Contract to explore, with a 100% equity interest, the Dumre Block, in the onshore of the country.
• Total has signed an agreement with Apache Corporation to acquire a 50% working interest and operatorship in the highly prospective Block 58 offshore Suriname, further expanding Total’s footprint in the prolific Guyana-Suriname basin. 
• ExxonMobil has secured more than 1.7 million acres for exploration offshore Egypt.

KeyFacts Energy: New Kid on the Block