Gambia: African Petroleum prepares for arbitration

African Petroleum says it is preparing to launch a formal arbitration process in its dispute with the government over blocks A1 and A4. Government officials say the licences expired in September 2016 and have not been renewed, but African Petroleum says the formal termination procedure has not been followed. In April, the Oslo-listed company said it had agreed heads of terms for an unnamed company to take a 70% stake in the Gambian blocks and its Senegal licence, but in July it said it had allowed the exclusivity agreement to lapse “to provide flexibility in government discussions” over the Gambia blocks, and to enable it to talk to other potential suitors for Senegal.