Oando Energy Resources Incorporated, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oando Plc, which is into oil and gas exploration and production says it has significantly increased its oil reserves as a result of technical revisions and the acquisition of the Nigerian upstream oil and gas business of ConocoPhillips.

The company has completed the acquisition of the assets of the US-based ConocoPhillips for a total cash consideration of $1.5b in July last year.

A report in the company’s 2014 year-end summary of reserves and resources for its assets in Nigeria noted that its proved net reserves increased by 78 percent to 288.5 million barrels of oil equivalent, while proved and probable net reserves increased by 82 percent to 420.3 mmboe.

The increase was largely due to recognising the precedence of the licence renewal under the Nigerian Petroleum Act, which is the basis of the extension of the reserves beyond the current license limit.

Oando said that the economic value of the proven and probable reserves had increased by $545m (+44 percent) to $1.785b, largely due to the ConocoPhillips acquisition.

The annual independent reserves and resources evaluation was undertaken by DeGolyer and MacNaughton, a worldwide petroleum consulting group, the company said adding that best estimate (working interest) contingent resources correspondingly decreased by 78 percent from 547 mmboe to 122 mmboe as a result of the conversion of approximately 190 mmboe of 2C resources to 2P reserves due to the rebased evaluation utilising the economic life of the producing fields.

The net negative revisions of 246 mmboe occurred due to the current crude oil price environment, which has deemed certain contingent developments uneconomic; as well as the change in the interpretation of reservoirs by the independent evaluator.

Chief Executive Officer, Oando Energy Resources, Mr. Pade Durotoye, said, “We are very pleased with the new 2014 reserves numbers that confirms our thesis at the time we embarked on our transformative ConocoPhillips acquisition.