Eni has completed the sale of 30% in the giant operational Baleine oil and gas project offshore Cote d’Ivoire to the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Vitol, the Italian energy major said on Thursday.
The Baleine project is Cote d’Ivoire’s main offshore development and after the transaction is now owned by Eni with a 47.25% stake, Vitol with 30%, and Cote d’Ivoire’s oil company Petroci with a 22.75% interest.
The sale of the minority stake to Vitol is part of Eni’s strategy to optimize its upstream portfolio by accelerating the monetization of exploration discoveries through the divestment of equity stakes, a model it has dubbed the “dual exploration model.”
The giant Baleine field was discovered in 2021, two decades after the last commercial discovery in the country, and it achieved production in record time, in 2023. Currently, Baleine produces more than 62,000 barrels of oil and more than 75 million cubic feet of gas per day from Phases 1 and 2.
With the launch of Phase 3, production is expected to rise to 150,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of gas per day, Eni said.
Earlier this year, Eni said that Vitol would buy stakes in some upstream assets in West Africa from the Italian group for $1.65 billion, subject to closing cash adjustments.
Eni has been pursuing in recent years the so-called ‘dual exploration model’, under which it sells part of its majority stakes to other companies to fast-track oil and gas discoveries to production.
Vitol, for its part, has been looking to get into more upstream and downstream assets after the world’s biggest trading houses generated exceptional profits during the spikes in energy commodity prices in the extremely volatile 2022-2023 period in oil and gas markets.
Eni and Vitol are already partners in the OCTP and Block 4 projects in Ghana, and are now further consolidating cooperation in West Africa.
Vitol has been present in West Africa’s upstream for many years and has a portfolio of infrastructure and downstream-related investments in the region.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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