CNOOC, GNPC in $5-bn joint bid for Kosmos Energy’s Jubilee oil stake

Hong Kong-listed CNOOC, China's third-largest oil company has teamed with Ghana National Petroleum Corp. (GNPC) to bid for Africa-focused oil explorer Kosmos Energy's assets in Ghana's Jubilee oil field.

CNOOC and GNPC have submitted a $5-billion bid for Kosmos Energy LLC's assets in the West African state, Reuters yesterday reported citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Discovered in 2007, the Jubilee oil-field, off the Ghana coast, is one of the largest offshore oil finds in the last decade in West Africa.
 
The field is divided into two licence areas - West Cape Three Points and Deepwater Tano.Kosmos had said in July 2009 that the Jubilee oil field could potentially hold 650 million barrels to 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent and that production was slated to start in late 2010, and would eventually pump about 120,000 barrels a day.

Privately held Kosmos Energy, which has oil stakes in West Africa, is the lead operator in Jubilee oil fields with a 30.875-per cent stake.
 
Other stakeholders in Jubilee are Anadarko, which holds 30.875 per cent stake, Tullow Oil plc with 22.896 per cent, GNPC with 10 per cent, E.O. Group with 3.5 per cent and Sabre Oil and Gas Limited with 1.854 per cent.

In October 2009, Kosmos, in which private equity firms Blackstone Group and Warburg Pincus hold a majority stake, had hired Barclays Plc and Standard Chartered Plc to auction its stake in Jubilee oil fields, which attracted oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron Corp., ExxonMobil., Italy's Eni SpA, CNOOC and India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp. as well as Ghana's GNPC.

CNOOC chairman Fu Chengyu had told Reuters in August 2009 that China was bidding for the Kosmos stake in the Jubilee oil fields. The Chinese bid was reported at that time to be in the region of between $3 billion and $5 billion.