In a move designed to capitalize on renewed global industry interest in oil and gas exploration due to traditional supply chain woes and surging energy demand, Bounty Oil & Gas, an independent Australian oil and gas explorer and producer, has taken a step to widen its portfolio with the acquisition of PetroQuest Liberia Deep Water, which opens the door to a deepwater exploration block in the Harper Basin off the coast of Liberia.
Bounty Oil & Gas has announced a major strategic expansion into deepwater West Africa through a binding agreement to acquire 100% of PetroQuest Liberia Deep Water, which grants it exclusive rights to negotiate a production sharing contract (PSC) for Block LB-32 , described as a high-impact, 2,322 square kilometers exploration asset in water depths ranging from 1,500 to 4,200 meters.
The Australian company has secured $3,547,500 in firm commitments via a heavily supported placement cornerstoned by institutional and strategic heavyweights Tribeca Investment Partners, L1 Capital Global Opportunities Master Fund, and S3 Consortium (Stocks Digital). The block is geologically analogous to the prolific oil provinces of Guyana and Suriname, as well as major West African discoveries in Ghana, Senegal, Côte D’Ivoire, and Namibia.
Bounty explains that initial interpretations suggest LB-32 contains significant portions of major basin floor fan systems, specifically the Jupiter (Turonian) and Zeus (Cenomanian) fan prospects. The block is covered by approximately 656 square kilometers of 3D seismic that forms part of the eastern portion of the TGS Sunfish survey and 753 line-kilometers of 2D seismic, enabling immediate due diligence and resource quantification.
Backed by a legally binding letter of engagement with the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), PetroQuest expects PSC negotiations and parliamentary approval to conclude by January 2027 or shortly thereafter.
The primary target is Upper Cretaceous basin floor fan play. Sand-rich drainage systems deposited discrete fan bodies (Jupiter and Zeus) sealed by effective deep-marine shales directly above regionally mature source rocks (Aptian and Cenomanian–Turonian shales).
The previous drilling along the Liberian margin, such as Narina-1 recovering 38° API oil, confirmed an active oil-prone system, though the outboard basin floor fans targeted by Bounty remain undrilled. The secondary plays include Upper Cretaceous slope fans/channels, Lower Tertiary basin floor fans that are analogous to Guyana’s Hammerhead discoveries, and deeper Aptian–Albian syn-rift plays.
Bounty’s board statement: “The proposed acquisition of PetroQuest Liberia Deep Water LLC represents a significant opportunity for Bounty to secure exposure to a deepwater exploration block in the Harper Basin, offshore Liberia, while maintaining a disciplined structure that links material vendor upside to independent technical validation and farm-out delivery.
“Our immediate focus will be on completing due diligence, progressing the production sharing contract pathway and obtaining the approvals required to move the transaction to completion. This transaction comes at a time when there have been significant movements by majors in the same play fairway in Liberia including TotalEnergies and in the adjoining jurisdictions including Petrobras and ExxonMobil.”
The block adjoins LB-30 and LB-31 blocks to the west and is bounded to the southeast by the Cape Palmas transform, which separates the Harper Basin from Ivorian basins of Côte d’Ivoire. LB-32 was the last unlicensed block in the Harper Basin at the time PetroQuest secured rights over it.
Under Liberia’s executive allocation petroleum licensing framework, the President of the Republic of Liberia has allocated legal title to Block LB-32 to NOCAL, which has agreed to grant PetroQuest an equity interest in Block LB-32 upon execution of the PSC, for which negotiations and Parliament approval are expected to be concluded by January 2027 or shortly thereafter.
In January 2026, TotalEnergies entered into a joint study and application agreement with BluEnergies under new RL-003, taking a 65% interest in the three Harper Basin blocks immediately west of LB-32. Bounty claims this work program includes reprocessing of the full Sunfish 3D by TGS, with the stated intention of converting the reconnaissance license into PSCs and selecting drilling locations.
Across the Cape Palmas transform in Côte d’Ivoire, Eni’s Baleine discovery (2021) was brought into production in August 2023 and is estimated to hold approximately 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 3.3 tcf of associated gas, and was followed by the Calao discovery in 2024.
Petrobras signed eight deepwater PSCs offshore Côte d’Ivoire in June 2026, and Murphy Oil is drilling a three-well exploration campaign across its five Ivorian blocks. Bounty elaborates that these developments demonstrate that the Upper Cretaceous fan play is being actively pursued by well-funded operators along the whole of the West African Transform Margin.