CorporateONGC loses Algeria oilfield to Chinese firm
State-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has lost an oilfield in Algeria to a consortium led by a Chinese oil firm. ONGC teamed up with Turkish Petroleum Corp (TPAO) and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) Dana Gas to bid for the hotly-contested Hassi Bir Rekaiz acreage in Algeria’s latest licensing round, sources said. It lost to a consortium of China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) and Thailand’s PTTEP.
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Spain’s Cepsa and Russia’s Gazprom were the other bidders for the acreage. Hassi Bir Rekaiz in the Berkine Basin was relinquished by Australia’s BHP Billiton after a 2005 award.
Algeria awarded three permits in its bid round for 10 exploration areas that closed on December 22, they said. Last month, ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of the state-run firm, had lost a bid for the Halfaya oilfield in Iraq’s second post-war bid round, to a consortium of China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), Petronas Cargali Sdn Bhd of Malaysia and France’s Total SA, sources said.
OVL had teamed up with Oil India Ltd and TPAO to bid $1.76 per barrel fee for boosting output from Halfaya field to 550,000 barrels per day (bpd). CNPC-led group offered to boost production to 535,000 bpd 3,000 bpd at $1.40 a barrel. The Halfaya oilfield has estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels of oil, they said.
OVL had, in the first Iraqi round in June 2009, lost the Zubair oilfield. Sources said the win over ONGC marks CNOOC’s entry into Algeria, where fellow state giants CNPC and Sinopec have already made upstream and downstream forays.
France’s Total with Portugal’s Partex walked away with potentially the biggest prize in the tender, the southerly Ahnet field, which Total says holds some 500 billion cubic metres (17.65 trillion cubic feet) of gas initially in place. Total was the sole qualified bidder. Besides, a consortium of Spanish Repsol YPF with GDF Suez and Italian Enel signed up to explore the South East Illizi Basin perimeter held previously by BP.
Algeria’s 2008 licensing round for 15 blocks resulted in just four awards; four areas from that round, in addition to Ahnet, were recycled in the current round but failed to attract interest.