Dutch Shell Express Interest In Oil Fields

The Royal Dutch Shell Plc is looking at stakes  put up for sale by Kosmos Energy in the large Ghanaian oil fields, the latest major show of interest in West Africa's new oil producing nation, people familiar with the matter said this week.

'They are looking at the data' on Kosmos' stakes in the Jubilee field, but it's unclear if they will bid,' one person said.

A Shell spokesman declined to comment and Kosmos didn't respond to a request for comment. The sale can herald the major entry into Ghana, which is set to become an oil producer next year.

However, other people familiar with the matter have previously said the deal, with an asking price of $3 billion, can't close before a development plan is agreed between the companies involved and the government of Ghana.

Apart from Kosmos, Tullow Oil Plc and Anadarko Petroleum Corp (APC) are investors in the Jubilee field, which contains recoverable reserves of at least 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Chevron Corp, ExxonMobil Corp, Italy's Eni SpA, India's Oil & Natural Gas Corp and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Ltd have also expressed interest.

The CNOOC has hired Goldman Sachs to advise it on a bid for a stake in Africa-focused Kosmos Energy, in a deal that can worth as much as $3 billion, according to sources.

In a related development, private equity-backed Kosmos, which has received a total of $800 million in financing from Blackstone and Warburg Pincus, has hired Standard Chartered and Barclays to sell its stakes in the Jubilee oil-field offshore Ghana, sources told Reuters.

CNOOC's pursuit of Kosmos comes quickly on the heels of Sinopec Group's expected $8 billion bid for Addax Petroleum, which has projects in Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon and Iraq.

Texas-based Kosmos has interest across Ghana, Benin, Cameroon, Morocco and Nigeria, including the Jubilee field of Ghana.

Jubilee, one of the largest oil fields in West Africa in the past decade, is predicated to hold 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The entire field is valued at around $15 billion.

India's Oil & Natural Gas Corporation is also expected to bid for the Kosmos stake and has issued a request for proposals to multiple investment banks, three sources with knowledge of the situation told Retures.

JP Morgan, Bank of America-Merill Lynch and Citigroup are among the banks in the running for ONGC's mandate, the sources said.

'ONGC has requested that its bank also find a partner for them to bid with,' one of the sources said.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment. CNOOC representatives were not immediately available for comment.