Ghana has repeated its threat to block the $4 billion sale of an oilfield stake to ExxonMobil by Kosmos Energy, the latest move in a tussle over control of key assets in the west African country.
Ghana wants to buy the same Jubilee field stake for its own state-run Ghana National Petroleum Corp (GNPC) and the West African country's energy minister said he had written a letter to the U.S. oil company.
«We said we would not approve the deal if it should go ahead as it is now," Energy Minister Joseph Oteng-Adjei told reporters at a conference, without saying when Ghana sent the letter.
Privately-owned Kosmos agreed last autumn to sell its 30.875 percent interest in The West Cape Three Points Block and its 18 percent stake in Deepwater Tano Block in the Gulf of Guinea to Exxon for around $4 billion, sources close to the deal have said.
LEGAL THREAT?
Earlier on Tuesday the Wall Street Journal reported that Ghana's government had actually blocked the deal
— something it has been threatening to do since October.
But Kosmos sources have said the government can only block a contract if it can show that the potential buyer lacks sufficient technical skills or financial strength
— a hurdle at which Exxon, the world's largest non-government controlled oil company, is unlikely to fall.
Analysts said if the government were to block the deal, it could face legal action from Kosmos, which is backed by U.S. private equity funds Blackstone Group LP and Warburg Pincus LLC, and that its threats could be intended to scupper the sale without opening itself up to a lawsuit.
Exxon spokesman Patrick McGinn said the company did not „comment on the details of commercial discussions or opportunities," adding only that it «routinely evaluates potential development opportunities around the world.“
The Jubilee field, which crosses the two blocks in which Kosmos holds stakes, has 800 million barrels of recoverable reserves, Oteng-Adjei said.
Jubilee was discovered in 2007 by a partnership of the Ghanaian government and international firms, and is expected to begin producing in the last quarter of this year.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday the government had blocked the deal
— something it has been threatening to do since October
— and would only allow GNPC buy the stake. (Additional reporting by Martinne Geller; Writing by Daniel Magnowski in Dakar and Tom Bergin in London; Editing by Karen Foster and Andrew Callus)
Author: Kwasi Kpodo
