ATP to sign oil production deal with Razio
Razio bringing aboard US company to operate Gal production offshore Netanyah, Israel Opportunity as partner in 10% of license
Calcalist has also learned that Israel Opportunity, the Israeli oil partnership, will be brought in as a partner in 10% of the production license.
The Gal license is located some 150 kilometers off the shores of Netanya and includes 1.77 million dunam in the Levant Basin which is considered to have good prospects after its two successful explorations, Tamar and Dalit. Furthermore, Gal is located near the Leviathan site which has a 50% chance of producing 453 billion cubic meters (BCM) of gas – nearly twice as much as in the Tamar field, according to surveys by Nobel Energy.
At the same time, Razio held talks with Norwegian operator AGR; however, the latter had encountered problems and estimates are that Razio is about to sign with ATP.
According to the agreement being formulated with the US operator and additional partners, Razio is expected to hold on to 40%-50% of the license, ATP will receive 20%-30% and the public company Israel Opportunity will hold 10% of the license.
Razio is negotiating with additional prospective strategic partners for stakes in the license. Calcalist learned that such talks were being held with publicly traded EZ Energy; however, they did not come to fruition and EZ will not partake in the license.
ATP is considered a global leader in deepwater drilling technology. The company is holding advanced negotiations for its registration on TASE following its entrance into the Israel market about a year ago. ATP specializes in production in the Gulf of Mexico in the US where it operates 29 rigs on the continental shelf.
The company's business was on the verge of a quantum leap when the BP spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico last summer, after which the US government halted production in the area for a six-month period. In an attempt to deal with the crises, ATP made a dramatic strategic change and began seeking alternative markets and production sites.
ATP founder and chief, Paul Bulmahn, recently told Calcalist: "We came here to stay a while. We see operations in Israel as a strategic goal."
Click here to read this report in Hebrew
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