- 20 septembre 2010
- 3 minutes read
Russian oil company LUKoil to invest $780m in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire
The second largest oil company in Russia, LUKoil says it will invest an amount of $780 million into oil exploration activities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, according to the Business Insider publication, citing LUKoil’s second executive and shareholder, Leonid Fedun.
It added, however that no one within the company has confirmed that figure.
According to the report Fedun announced last week that the major Russian oil producer expects to find more oil in Africa than in Russia.
LUKoil, the report said has confirmed that at an industry presentation on September 8, Fedun said that LUKoil may find more potential petroleum in West Africa than in West Siberia, Russia’s biggest production region. “We will conduct unprecedented geological exploration in the next two years, drilling up to 13 wells,” he said.
LUKoil is already in Ghana. In February of this year, the company announced that it had made “a quite significant” discovery of gas and light oil while drilling at the Dzata-1 field off the Cape Three Points bloc, in the Gulf of Guinea. In addition to LUKoil, the exploration project partners are Vanco Energy of Texas and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation. That well cost $60 million to drill.
A second and third exploration well have been drilled off Cote d’Ivoire.
LUKoil is a publicly listed international, and the second largest oil producer and exporter in Russia (after state-owned Rosneft). Its controlling shareholders are Fedun and chief executive, Vagit Alekperov. The company’s current market capitalization is $45.8 billion, making it the fourth most valuable enterprise in Russia.
Ghana is set to join the world’s oil producing countries when commercial production of oil begins in November or December. Production is expected to begin in the country’s largest oil field, Jubilee. According to Tullow Oil, the major stakeholders in the field it contains 1.5 million barrels of oil. And it is the largest oil field to be discovered in West Africa in the last 10 to 15 years.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi (ghanabusinessnews.com)
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