Nigeria’s Taleveras, ExxonMobil, UK’s Ophir in Equatorial Guinea oil block wins

Nigeria’s rising and diversifying oil trading company, Taleveras, along with international oil company, ExxonMobil and United Kingdom based Ophir, were big winners in an Equatorial Guinea’s oil block bidding process whose results were announced Monday.

At the African Oil and Gas Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest producer, Equatorial Guinea’s Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons Gabriel Obiag-Lima, announced that Taleveras picked the highly potential EG-07 oil block.

ExxonMobil was announced as winner of offshore block EG-11, for which it has signed a production-sharing contract with the country, according to the hydrocarbon ministry.

“Block EG-11 is the jewel among a group of already very prospective blocks that we are signing in 2017,” said Gabriel Obiang Lima.

ExxonMobil already operates Zafiro field, the largest oil producing field in Equatorial Guinea, and Obiang Lima said the deal was not part of the 2016 licensing round, whose winning bidders were later announced Monday to include Nigeria’s Taleveras.

Exxon Mobil, in a statement confirmed it signed its Production Sharing Contract with Equitorial Guniea for Oil acreage E.G.-11.

UK based Ophir Energy won block EG 24 and Clonterf Energy landed Block EG-18. The West African nation’s Ronda 2016 open and competitive bidding round was declared a success by Industry analyst and watchers.

Taleveras is a Nigerian global oil trading company with more than $2 billion in credit lines, and which a couple of years ago, began working on a project that is billed to be a game changer in the petroleum products distribution operations in the West African sub region.

It has an existing partnership arrangement with the government of Equatorial Guinea to establish oil storage and blending hub (OSBH) in Bioko Island to promote fuel efficiency in the region.

The rights to the projects were obtained through an open negotiation process which involved several companies.

That deal was at the time it was signed described as an emerging trend in Africa that saw global trading houses vie for access to the continent’s booming gasoline and diesel markets, where demand is expected to grow by nearly 60 percent by 2025.