Kosmos Energy Ltd. said it expects to resume development drilling on Ghana’s multibillion-dollar TEN deepwater oil and gas project in early 2018, rather than around the end of this year as it previously expected.

U.S.-listed shares of Kosmos rose as much as 4.7% to a near two-and-half-year high of $8.48.

Tullow Oil Plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Ghana National Petroleum Corp and PetroSA also have stakes in the TEN project.

Dallas, Texas-based Kosmos is working with the partners to bring a second rig into Ghana in 2018, CEO Andrew Inglis said on a post-earnings call Nov. 6.

In September, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea drew an ocean boundary favoring Ghana in a maritime border dispute with its neighbor Ivory Coast, opening the way for development drilling to resume on the TEN project.

The decade-old row between the two West African neighbors has slowed the development of oil fields.

Kosmos also estimated it would require two shutdowns in 2018, resulting in about four weeks of downtime, to stabilize the turret of the FPSO vessel at its Jubilee Field in Ghana. An issue with the turret bearing was identified in February 2016. The company had previously planned a shutdown of 5 to 8 weeks in late 2017.

Planning for the rotation of the vessel in the Jubilee Field is also ongoing, with work expected to begin around year-end 2018, Kosmos said.

During third-qaurter 2017, Kosmos said its gross sales volumes from Ghana averaged about 160,000 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d), including volumes from the Jubilee and TEN fields which averaged about 100,000 bbl/d and 60,000 bbl/d, respectively.

Offshore