Kosmos Energy LLC, the U.S.-based oil explorer focusing on West Africa, rejected a joint bid from China National Offshore Oil Corp., BP Plc (BP/) and Ghana National Petroleum Corp. for its stake in the offshore Jubilee field.
The partners had the offer turned down last week, Ato Ahwoi, chairman of the West African nation’s state-owned oil company, told reporters today in Accra.
Kosmos’s rejection of the approach may make it more likely the company, backed by Blackstone Group LP (BX) and Warburg Pincus LLC, pursues the initial public offering it filed notice of in January. Kosmos has become an oil producer with the Jubilee start-up, diverging from its strategy focusing on exploration.
“Last week Kosmos told us they would not sell their shares to GNPC, rather they wanted to do an IPO in New York,” Ahwoi said, declining to disclose the value of the bid. “Kosmos wants to do an initial public offering and that is within their rights.”
Sheila Williams, a London-based spokeswoman at BP, declined to comment. Jiang Yongzhi, a Beijing-based spokesman for Cnooc Ltd. (883), did not respond to a call made to his mobile phone out of office hours. George Sarpong, a country representative for Kosmos in Ghana, didn’t answer two calls on his mobile phone or immediately respond to an e-mail message. No-one returned a phone message left at Kosmos’s Dallas headquarters prior to working hours.
Kosmos in August ended almost a year of talks to sell its Ghanaian assets, including the stake in Jubilee, for $4 billion to Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) after government opposition to the deal.
Cnooc, China’s largest offshore oil producer, and GNPC made a $5-billion bid to buy Kosmos assets in Ghana last year, three people with knowledge of the matter said in October.
Jubilee, which is operated by Tullow Oil Plc (TLW), is pumping about 69,000 barrels of oil a day and will reach 120,000 barrels a day of production later this year. The project partners, including Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC), invested about $3.1 billion in the deposit with potential resources of about 1.8 billion barrels discovered in 2007.
