Etinde potential. 263

million barrels of oil equivalent - that is how much the resources of the areas on the Cameroon shelf, a share of which Lukoil will receive, are estimated

The Cameroonian government has approved the sale of 50% of the Etinde project on the Cameroon shelf by the British company Bowleven to Lukoil and African New AGE (African Global Energy), Bowleven reports. New AGE already owns 25% of the project, after the deal its share will be 37.5%, the same amount will belong to Lukoil, Bowleven's share will decrease to 25%. The operator of the project will be New AGE, the parties have postponed the date of completion of the transaction from October 31 to December 31, Bowleven reports.

The deal was announced in June. It won't close in October because the process of getting approval from the Cameroonian government took longer than expected, but now Cameroon's president needs to sign the necessary decree, a Bowleven spokesman said. The deal is worth $250 million, of which The Russian company must pay $187.5 million. Bowleven will receive $170 million after the deal closes, and the rest in deferred payments following the drilling of two exploratory wells.

The Etinde site is located in the Gulf of Guinea in close proximity to the border of Equatorial Guinea and includes three license blocks with a total area of 2,300 square kilometers. Thirteen of the 16 exploration wells drilled have yielded "positive results." The final investment decision on the project on the feasibility of further development of the site has been made. expected in 2015, Lukoil reported in June. Yesterday, a Lukoil representative declined to comment.

Lukoil is already operating in the Gulf of Guinea - on the shelf of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana. The projects there are at the exploration stage and have so far been unsuccessful. In 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, the company wrote off about $440 million on projects in West Africa . But in September, Lukoil Overseas reported that it had found oil and gas on the Ghanaian shelf. Whether the discovery is commercial will be determined by the end of the year.

Bowleven's previous partner in the Etinde project was Petrofac, which entered into an agreement in November 2012. Petrofac was to become Bowleven's financial and technical partner, investing $500 million in the project and providing technology to develop the site. But in July, the parties announced that they were terminating the agreement. , this was one of the conditions for Bowleven to continue working with Lukoil and New AGE, Bowleven said in a statement. The company was also required to pay $9 million to Petrofac after the agreement was terminated. A Petrofac representative did not provide further comment.

Petrofac's place in the project was taken by Lukoil, so Petrofac could not remain in it, the companies would duplicate each other's functions, says Canaccord Genuity analyst Alex Brooks. In addition, Petrofac has several projects that require more investment from it than it planned , so the company decided to abandon Etinde, he adds. Bowleven had been looking for a partner for the project for several years without success, and it’s hard to say what the problems were, but investors weren’t interested in Etinde, Brooks notes.

It is difficult to obtain interesting deposits in Russia, they usually go to state-owned companies, so developing international projects is the best option for Lukoil, says Raiffeisenbank analyst Andrey Polischuk. But there are many unexplored deposits in Africa, there are prospects in this region, he adds.

Lukoil instead of Petrofac