DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
ConocoPhillips (COP), Mubadala Development Co. and Kazakhstan's
state oil company have finalized a deal for offshore exploration
and production in an 8,100-square-kilometer area of the Caspian
Sea.
KazMunayGas will own a 51% stake while Conoco and Mubadala, an
Abu Dhabi government-owned investment vehicle, will hold the rest
equally. The trio agreed to a memorandum of understanding in
October.
The area in question had been the target of attention of both
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and Conoco before the Kazakh
government granted exclusive exploration and production rights to
KazMunayGas in 2007.
The property is estimated to have 4.7 billion barrels of oil
equivalent.
Conoco and KazMunayGas are among the partners in another Kazakh
oil field in which the state-owned firm said in January it would
investment some $1.7 billion. That field, the world's biggest oil
find in 30 years, has been mired in fighting about delays in
starting production, as it is one of the world's most technically
challenging oil projects.
-By Kevin Kingsbury, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2136;
kevin.kingsbury@dowjones.com