Reuters
South African state-owned oil firm PetroSA and US-listed Anadarko Petroleum Corp have signed a deal for oil and gas exploration in blocks off the coast of South Africa, the companies said. Under the farm-in deal, whose value was not disclosed, Anadarko will hold an 80% stake in Block 5/6 and Block 7 and will serve as operator, and PetroSA will hold the rest.
Under a farm-in agreement, a company buys an interest from another in an existing field, often to help finance development.
Ian Cooling, executive vice-president at Anadarko, said the company was interested in South Africa because it was looking for frontier acreage and a country where there was potential to grow a business if the exploration work proved successful.
“We think that South Africa provides all of that,” he said at the signing ceremony.
He did not elaborate on how much Anadarko was planning to invest in the first three-year-long phase of the exploration work.
Explorers in South Africa’s offshore areas have had limited success, despite more promising finds along the coast of neighbouring Namibia and Mozambique, but South Africa is seen to hold good potential for shale gas and coal bed methane exploration onshore.
Anadarko, along with other global players, has been very successful in exploration off the coast of Mozambique.
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