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Cape Town - South African national oil company PetroSA has
concluded a deal to buy oil and gas assets in Ghana, a senior official said on
Wednesday, giving it access to crude from the huge Jubilee Field.
“We have bought Sabre Oil and Gas Holdings Ltd in Ghana,
which gives us access to Jubilee Field and provides a strategic entry into the
prolific Gulf of Guinea,” Nosizwe Nokwe-Macamo told parliament during a
presentation on PetroSA’s annual report.
She did not provide details of the value of the deal in the
West African nation, the world’s second-biggest grower of cocoa and whose
economy has soared since oil was first pumped from Jubilee in 2010.
However, production delays have helped temper growth
expectations, with Africa-focused Tullow Oil looking to ramp up output to
90,000 barrels a day by the end of the year.
PetroSA, which reported a net profit of R1.4bn for the
2011-12 financial year, is looking for new acquisitions to grow its revenue
base, largely dependent on its Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids refinery.
“Growth initiatives will include new upstream and downstream
projects to complement the Sabre Oil and Gas acquisition, and possibly, the
Venezuela mature fields,” said the annual report.
Nokwe said in July that PetroSA was in talks to buy
Sabre assets in Ghana.
She also said at the time that it was in talks with Italian
oil major ENI SpA to participate in its offshore Mozambique project, where ENI
has made massive gas discoveries expected to turn the southern African nation
into a major gas exporter.
PetroSA, which also has exploration acreage in Egypt, Equatorial Guinea and Namibia, has embarked on an aggressive campaign to buy new assets and diversify its revenue base.
