Woodside buys Senegal assets

Senegal

PERTH, July 14, 2016 – Woodside Petroleum on Thursday announced it would be acquiring ConocoPhillips’ Senegal deepwater stakes, including its 35% working interest in the Sangomar Deep block where it, along operator Cairn Energy, discovered a working petroleum system in late-2014.

Woodside will make an upfront payment of USD 350 million, followed by a further USD 80 million upon completion. ConocoPhillips’ Senegal stake in the production-sharing contract with the government covers the Rifisque, Sangomar and Sangomar Deep offshore exploration blocks.

In November 2014, ConocoPhillips announced that its SNE-1 well had encountered oil some 95 km off Senegal, where the FAN-1 well too had discovered oil. In its Thursday press release, Woodside noted that the find totals 560 million barrels of recoverable oil. Other interest holders are Far with 15% and Petrosen with 10%.

“We are taking advantage of our balance sheet to acquire a world-class asset that fits well with our capabilities, offers significant future upside in exploration and line-of-sight to near-term oil production,” CEO Peter Coleman said. The company expects to close the deal by the end of 2016.