Posted on :Saturday , 31st October 2015

State-owned Indian Oil Corp Ltd (IOC) has partner Delonex Energy, a new Africa-focused oil and gas explorer led by former Cairn India chief Rahul Dhir, to win its maiden oil block in Mozambique.

IOC and Delonex were awarded onshore Block P5-A in southern Mozambique, a company executive said. The combine was declared winner alongside the consortium of Russia’s Rosneft and ExxonMobil that won rights for three offshore blocks.

It was awarded three contract areas: A5-B in the Angoche Basin as well as Z5-C and Z5-D in the Zambezi Delta in a former Portuguese colony of Mozambique. N-Exploration (a 100% Rosneft subsidiary) and ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Mozambique Offshore have been awarded 3 blocks with the US firm as the operator.

Other companies which have been awarded areas as operators include Eni which won Angoche basin Area A5-A and Sasol Petroleum for Pande/Temane basin onshore Area PT5-C. Officials said Delonex will be operator of the 9,988 square kilometer Area P5-1 in Palmeira basin while IOC will hold 20% interest.

Mozambique’s national oil company ENH will hold the remaining 10%. The partners have committed $20 million in first phase of exploration that would include shooting of 10,000 kms of 2D seismic. The first phase of exploration will last three years. Mozambique had on 23 October, 2014 launched its 5th Licensing Round offering a total of 15 onshore and offshore petroleum concessions.

The licensing round was delayed for more than two years while new petroleum laws were being finalized. The bids were to close on 30 April, 2015 but were delayed to 30 July. Out of the eight applications that came in, Mozambique’s upstream regulator awarded only six contract areas.

IOC-Delonex were the sold bidder for onshore Block P5-A. Dhir, after quiting Cairn India soon after the company was taken over by mining billionaire Anil Agarwal in 2011, has got private equity firm Warburg Pincus to commit up to $600 million for the new Africa-focused oil and gas explorer he had floated. Last year, Delonex had been awarded an exploration licence in Ethiopia.

The licence covers Blocks 18, 19 and 21 located in the Abred-Ferfer area, Ethiopia with a total acreage of 29,865 sq km. The areas won by Rosneft-Exxon Mobil are in the northern Rovuma Basin, where US oil major Anadarko Petroleum and Italy’s Eni are developing multi-billion-dollar liquefied natural gas (LNG) export projects.

ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC), Oil India Ltd and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) hold a total of 30% interest in Anadarko-operator Area-1. The southern African country hopes to harness its vast natural gas reserves to become the world’s third-largest LNG exporter, behind Qatar and Australia.