Petrobras puts Nigerian deepwater assets up for sale

Brazilian oil company Petrobras is putting its deepwater offshore assets in Nigeria up for sale.

In a teaser announced on Tuesday, the company said it was selling Petrobras Oil & Gas B.V., a subsidiary owning interest in two deepwater offshore blocks in Nigeria.

The blocks contain the producing fields Akpo and Agbami, and the multi-billion dollar, Total-led, oil development Egina, were first production is expected in late 2018.

According to Petrobras, the oil field Akbo and condensate field Agbami together account for approximately 18% of Nigeria’s liquid production, and are two of the four largest producing offshore fields in the country.

Furthermore, the block OML 130 in which Agbami is located, contains the Preowei discovery, which is currently being appraised. Petrobras has described the discovery as one of the largest undeveloped oil discoveries offshore Nigeria with 2C gross resources of 300 MMbbl.

The plan is to develop the discovery using the Egina FPSO, which has recently left Korea, and is now on its way to Nigeria.

The giant Akpo and Egina fields are operated by Total and Agbami by Chevron.

POGBV’s net entitlement reserves amount to approximately 204 million bbl with current production of 48 thousand bbl/day and expectation to reach around 75 thousand bbl/day by 2019.

“In addition to the stable production from Agbami and Akpo, Egina and Preowei provide a low-risk, steep production growth profile from c. 48 Mbbl/d currently to c. 75 Mbbl/d in 2019. The potential transaction represents a unique opportunity to acquire an established company with a focused, world-class portfolio, material production and reserves, and significant near-term growth in addition to partnership with world-class operators,”Petrobras said.

Petrobras expects from potential buyers to meet certain criteria, such as having a a market capitalization, net worth or aggregate assets under management of more than $2 billion, and a net Debt/EBITDA ratio below 5.0x.

Worth noting, Petrobras is leading a sales process on behalf of all the shareholders in Petrobras Oil & Gas B.V., which is a joint venture formed by Petrobras (50%), BTG Pactual E&P B.V. (40%) and Helios Investment Partners (10%).

Also, Petrobras has this week received an approval to proceed with the $2.2 billion sale of some Brazilian assets to Total, as part of the two companies’ agreement reached earlier this year.

According to info available on Petrobras’ website, the Brazilian national oil company is looking to unlock some $19.5 billion through partnerships and asset sales in 2017-2018 period.

Offshore Energy Today Staff