{"id":5613,"date":"2013-11-18T06:41:24","date_gmt":"2013-11-18T11:41:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/?p=5613"},"modified":"2013-11-18T06:57:06","modified_gmt":"2013-11-18T11:57:06","slug":"ophir-energy-sells-stake-in-tanzanias-natural-gas-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/5613","title":{"rendered":"Ophir Energy Sells Stake in Tanzania\u2019s Natural Gas Fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ophirs-natural-gas-blocks.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"300\" height=\"133\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5614 alignleft\" alt=\"Ophir's natural gas blocks\" src=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ophirs-natural-gas-blocks-300x133.jpg\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ophirs-natural-gas-blocks-300x133.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ophirs-natural-gas-blocks-220x97.jpg 220w, http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Ophirs-natural-gas-blocks.jpg 524w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>British oil explorer Ophir Energy has sold a 20 percent stake in three natural gas blocks off Tanzania\u2019s coast to Singapore\u2019s state-owned Pavilion Energy Pte. Ltd for $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n<p>This is the first major deal in Tanzania\u2019s natural-gas sector and it is expected to set the pace for similar transactions in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking regarding the deal, Ophir Chief Executive Nick Cooper said &#8220;The sale is consistent with our strategy of adding value in the exploration and appraisal phase.&#8221; The company announced in March that it was looking to bring in partners to its fields and has since received attention from several Chinese, Indian and Thai state-run companies that are eager to acquire long-term assets in natural-gas.<\/p>\n<p>Ophir also revealed that it is in talks with Indian state-run gas company GAIL which is eager to acquire between 10 and 30 percent stake in five natural gas blocks on the Tanzanian coast. GAIL however declined to comment on the deal.<\/p>\n<p>Ophir and partner BG Group hold 15 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Tanzanian coast. The two intend to construct a liquefied-natural-gas plant on the Tanzanian coast to ship the fuel to Asia at a cost of approximately $10 billion. Ophir is looking to bring in deep-pocketed partners to help finance this exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>This deal is Pavilion Energy\u2019s first overseas investment in upstream energy assets and is part of it\u2019s parent company\u2019s efforts to increase its holdings in the energy sector. &#8220;The natural-gas developments in Tanzania hold tremendous potential\u2014not just for Pavilion Energy, but for Singapore and Asia,&#8221; Pavilion said regarding the deal. Singapore currently imports the bulk of its natural gas from neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia. About 85% of Singapore\u2019s electricity is generated from gas.<\/p>\n<p>Several Asian nations have acquired stakes worth billions of dollars in East Africa\u2019s energy sector over the past 18 months. China National Petroleum Corp recently bought 20% of Italy&#8217;s Eni SpA\u2019s license in Mozambique while India\u2019s Oil &amp; Natural Gas Corp purchased 10% of U.S. Company Anadarko Petroleum Corp\u2019s Mozambique license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British oil explorer Ophir Energy has sold a 20 percent stake in three natural gas blocks off Tanzania\u2019s coast to Singapore\u2019s state-owned Pavilion Energy Pte. Ltd for $1.3 billion. This is the first major deal in Tanzania\u2019s natural-gas sector and<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <span class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/5613\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[44,1],"tags":[392,393,4972],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.zegabi.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}