Equinor buys Barra’s Carcara stake for $370 million

Norway’s Equinor will buy Barra Energia’s ten percent interest in the BM-S-8 license in Santos basin, offshore Brazil.

CEO Renato Bertani (left), Barra Energia, and Anders Opedal, Brazil country manager. (Photo Guilherme Botelho Equinor ASA)
CEO Renato Bertani (left), Barra Energia, and Anders Opedal, Brazil country manager. (Photo Guilherme Botelho Equinor ASA)

Equinor on Wednesday said the acquisition would enable “Equinor and its partners to fully align interests across the two licenses for the Carcará area.”

In early June Equinor, ExxonMobil and Galp completed transactions in BM-S-8 to start aligning equity interests with those the three partners hold in the adjacent Carcará North block.

BM-S-8 and Carcará North together comprise the Carcará area, which contains approximately 2 billion recoverable barrels of oil equivalent.

Equinor is the operator of both blocks and aims to develop the unitized field with the ambition to deliver first oil between 2023 and 2024.

Equinor said it would pay $370 million for Barra’s 10% interest, the same amount it paid for the Queiroz Galvão Exploração e Produção (QGEP) acreage in July 2017.

Closing is subject to customary conditions, including partner and government approval, and price adjustments in consideration of a reference date of July 2016. Upon closing, Equinor intends to sell down 3.5% to ExxonMobil and 3% to Galp, so fully aligning interests across BM-S-8 and Carcará North.

Map source: Equinor