The company has secured an interest in more than 274,000 square kilometres of hydrocarbon prospective tenements in Mauritania, Mali and Morocco.

Part of that portfolio is the Cap Juby prospect off the coast of Morocco and Baraka has agreed to conduct a joint study with Roc Oil, which held a portion of the area until 2000.

It also appointed Satyavan Reymond as its chief operating officer.

The company also finalised a farmout deal allowing Woodside Petroleum to earn a 75% interest in the production sharing contracts over the Taoudeni Basin Blocks Ta11 and Ta12 off Mauritania by spending up to $US18 million.

Woodside has currently undertaken reprocessing of the seismic data in the Mauritanian side of the Taoudeni basin to meet the requirements of the first year committed work program.

Also off Mauritania, and that country’s parliament approved a production sharing contract application Baraka filed over Coastal Block 20, which covers 10,690 square kilometres adjacent to the offshore Mauritanian Salt Sub basin containing the Chinguetti and Tiof commercial discoveries.

On June 29 Baraka entered into a farmout agreement with CNPC International that would let CPNCI earn a 65% interest by spending $US8.6 million.

Baraka has also entered into a memorandum of understanding with Moroccan national oil company ONAREP for the review and evaluation of the Cap Judy offshore tenement.

Evaluation work is ongoing, with Baraka and Roc Oil also concentrating on the Cap Juby heavy oil discovery and previously identified targets including the Winnow and Shazam leads.

Roc possesses a great deal of information on those areas.

On the diplomatic front, Baraka is housing the honorary Consulate of Mali in Australia in its Perth office.

The company also opened offices Nouakchot, Mauritania and Bamako, Mali.