The plot is thickening as the players don their pads for
what ultimately could be a wild and wooly tussle for the
rights to buy Dallas-based Kosmos Energy's stake in Ghana's
big offshore Jubilee field.
ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM)
got there first, and a matter of weeks ago it appeared
that it had salted a $4 billion deal with Kosmos for the
private company's 23.49% interest in Jubilee, which likely
holds as much as 1.8 billion barrels of oil. Then in
came China's
CNOOC (NYSE: CEO) which also had designs of
its own on the Kosmos stake. CNOOC was being advised by
Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), but is no longer
working with the firm, which is evidence that CNOOC is no
longer in the picture.
Here's why: Goldman apparently is now advising
BP (NYSE: BP), which has entered the fray and
may bid for the stake. An advisor cannot coach two teams in
the same game. So now BP is in -- to whatever degree -- and
CNOOC is out, but the group remains fluid. Witness the latest
player to run onto the field,
China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (NYSE:
SNP), or Sinopec to its friends.
The Chinese company apparently has made an offer to the
Ghanaian government to make a joint bid for the valuable
stake. You'll be interested to know that the Chinese company
is being advised by Neil Bush, the son and brother of two
former U.S. presidents.
And the companies named above don't constitute all of
those that have had discussion with the Ghanaian government.
You can throw in France's
Total (NYSE: TOT) as well, and perhaps others
by the time you read this piece.
Why is the stake so valuable? It just so happens that
Jubilee may lieat the eastern edge of a 700-mile
structure that could finish up at the western edge in Sierra
Leone. Oil was discovered there recently in nearly 6,000 feet
of water by a group that included
Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC), and Spain's
Repsol , along with the U.K.'s
Tullow Oil and Australia's
Woodside Oil .
My opinion is that the Kosmos stake will ultimately go to
Exxon, with BP a close second. Funny, those just happen to be
two of the integrated companies that I believe Fools should
place in the most prominent positions on their radar
screens.
ExxonMobilis a four-star company to
Motley Fools CAPSplayers,
while
BP carries
five. Why not check on these companies' CAPS pages to
learn more?
This article was originally published as
Sinopec Joins the Wild Race for Ghana's Oilon
Fool.com
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