Gran Tierra strikes again

On 15th January, Gran Tierra announced the acquisition of PetroGranada’s interest in the highly prospective Putumayo-7 Block, southern Colombia. The acquisition increases the company’s interest in the block to 100% and adds two more drill ready prospects to the inventory of lower risk prospects established through the recently closed Petroamerica acquisition. Gran Tierra will acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of PetroGranada (which holds 50% in Putumayo-7) for USD19 million. In addition Gran Tierra  will pay a further USD4...

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Statoil acquires stake in Lundin Petroleum

On 14th January, Statoil announced that it had acquired 37.1 million shares in Lundin Petroleum, corresponding to 11.9% of the company. Statoil says that it paid c.SEK4.6 billion for the shares, which equates to a price of SEK120/share or a 28% premium to the share price close as of yesterday at SEK97. Statoil purchased the shares over the past few weeks and says it is supportive of Lundin management, its board of directors and strategy, but there...

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PTTEP may pre-empt BG Bongkot process

On 12th January, it was reported that PTTEP, Thailand’s state owned oil company, is keen to acquire BG’s stake in Bongkot. The Bongkot area is located in the Malay Basin in the Gulf of Thailand and consists of various gas accumulations. It is currently owned by PTTEP (44.45% operator), Total (33.33%) and BG (22.22%). PTTEP’s potential desire to acquire this asset is in line with the strategy of Asian NOCs’ of security of supply. For BG, the disposal...

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Kurdistan producers receive fourth consecutive payment from the KRG

Tawke processing facilities Source: KRG On 6th January, DNO and Genel announced that partners of the DNO-operated Tawke field have received a gross payment of USD30 million from the Kurdistan Regional Government for oil exported through the Kurdistan Region of Iraq-Turkey pipeline. This represents the fourth export payment by the KRG since payments recommenced in September. On 5th January, Genel also confirmed that the Taq Taq field...

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Saudi Arabia: fissures within

King Salman The lack of agreement between members at the 168th OPEC meeting on 4th December means that Saudi Arabia can continue to pursue its strategy of maintaining market share over price for a little longer. In fact, recent production figures show that Saudi Arabia is pumping record amounts of crude this year, a sign of its commitment to this strategy. However, with oil prices reaching recent lows of c.USD40/bbl and little sign of a recovery...

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The Egyptian gas landscape

The Egyptian gas sector has historically suffered from underinvestment and the country has experienced a domestic supply shortfall since the beginning of 2015. Subsidised gas pricing encouraged strong demand growth during the 1990s and 2000s and at the same time, declining gas reserves in the onshore and the high cost of offshore gas developments have resulted in investment being diverted away from gas to onshore oil. The state of the gas market...

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Repsol and Statoil announce asset swap

Alfa Sentral platform in the North Sea On 11th December, Statoil and Repsol announced that they had entered into number of asset swaps as part of a packaged deal: In the North Sea, Statoil farms down a 15% WI in Gudrun (Norway), whilst retaining operatorship and will acquire a 31% WI in Alfa Sentral (UK portion), a field which spans the UK-Norway border In the US, Statoil acquires a 13% WI in the Eagle Ford JV and becomes operator, taking...

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