Qatar Petroleum has agreed to acquire a stake of 25% each in three exploration blocks in the Lamu basin, offshore Kenya from Eni and Total for an undisclosed price.
The Qatari national oil company will acquire 13.75% stake each in the three offshore Kenyan blocks L11A, L11B and L12 from Eni and the remaining 11.25% stake from Total.
Transactions marks the entry of Qatar Petroleum into offshore blocks in Kenya
Following the closing of the deals, Eni will continue to be the operator with a reduced stake of 41.25% stake while Total will bring down its stake to 33.75%. For Qatar Petroleum, the transactions are expected to consolidate its position in the exploration of frontier basins with considerable potential for hydrocarbon resources.
Qatar Petroleum president and CEO Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said: “We are pleased to sign this agreement to participate in exploring these frontier offshore areas in Kenya and to further strengthen our presence in Africa.”
“We hope that the exploration efforts are successful, and we look forward to collaborating with our valuable partners Eni and Total, and the government of Kenya in these blocks.”
The transactions will be subject to customary regulatory approvals from the Kenyan government.
The three offshore blocks that are contained in a frontier and largely unexplored area in the Lamu basin are spread over a total area of nearly 15,000km2. The blocks, located in the eastern part of Kenya, are in water depths ranging from about 1,000-3,000m.
According to Eni, the Kenyan transaction is the last of a series of agreements it had singed recently with Qatar Petroleum, which further strengthens the continuously evolving strategic cooperation between the two firms. The upstream companies are partners in Oman, Mexico, Mozambique and Morocco as well.
In March 2019, the companies signed a farm-out deal that enables the Qatari company to acquire a 25.5% participating stake in Block A5-A in the deep waters of the Northern Zambezi Basin in Mozambique.
