27 December 2011, Sweetcrude, CAPE TOWN – Anadarko Petroleum, US independent, has made an entry into South Africa after reportedly acquiring state-owned oil company PetroSA’s stake in three offshore blocks.
The Orange basin blocks 5, 6 and 7 cover 98,000 square kilometres, according to a PetroSA e-mail cited by Bloomberg.
Anadarko said last month that fields off Mozambique in east Africa may hold 15 trillion to 30 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas, compared with an earlier estimate of at least 10 Tcf. The company also has acreage off the coast of Kenya, as well as projects off west Africa.
A spokesman for the Woodlands, Texas-based company said the South African transaction is consistent with Anadarko’s overall exploration strategy. The company may start to acquire seismic data for evaluation in 2013, he said.
“With the success that we’ve had in Mozambqiue and the acreage that we have off Kenya, this fits nicely with that whole east African programme,” he added, while not divulging the purchase price.
