Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb.19 / Trend A. Badalova /
The U.S. Devon Energy Corporation intends to put for sale its share in the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli (ACG) PSA in Azerbaijan in the near future.
"We are in the process of opening data rooms in February and March," Devon Energy Manager, Media Relations head Chip Minty told Trend via e-mail
Minty did not mention the cost of shares offered for sale, and did not specify any other details, saying that the company is only at the early stages of the process.
Devon Energy has a 5.62-percent equity share in the ACG project with the estimated reserves over 7 billion barrels of oil.
ACG participating interests are: BP (operator - 34.1 percent), Chevron (10.2 percent), SOCAR (10 percent), INPEX (10 percent), StatoilHydro (8.6 percent), ExxonMobil (8 percent), TPAO (6.8 percent), Devon (5.6 percent), ITOCHU (3.9 percent), and Delta Hess (2.7 percent).
Chinese Cnooc and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Chinese petrochemical company) are considering an opportunity of purchasing the share of Devon Energy in the Azerbaijani project, which can cost about three billion dollars, Bloomberg said with reference to two sources familiar with the transaction
Japanese participants Itochu and Inpex companies may also be among the interested in purchasing the shares of the American company
According to the company official, Devon Energy also decided to focus its activities on onshore projects in North America
Presently, the daily production rate of Azeri Light on the ACG in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian is roughly 850,000 barrels a day.
Oil transportation is carried out through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) and Baku-Supsa pipelines. ExxonMobil and Devon Energy are the shareholders of the ACG project, not investing in the construction of the BTC pipeline, transport their share of Azeri Light oil in Batumi port by the railway.
PSA on the ACG project was signed in September 1994. Validity period is 30 years.