By Jeffrey T. Lewis
BRASILIA--Brazilian oil startup HRT Participacoes em Petroleo SA
(HRTPY, HRTP3.BR, HRP.V) said Monday it signed a farm-out agreement
with Portugal's Galp Energia (GALP.LB) covering three fields off
the coast of Namibia.
The agreement covers the PEL 23 field in the Walvis basin and
the PEL 24 and 28 fields in the Orange basin. Under the terms of
the agreement, Galp will cover part of HRT's costs for operating
the initial wells, up to a certain limit, HRT said in a regulatory
filing.
HRT said last week that the latest study of the company's
exploration blocks off the coast of Namibia boosted the amount of
oil the areas could potentially hold ahead of an expected stake
sale.
HRT said that a report by industry consultants group DeGolyer
and MacNaughton pegged average prospective resources in the
company's offshore acreage in Namibia at 7.4 billion barrels of oil
equivalent, up nearly 7% from estimates in 2011. Average
prospective resources are a preliminary measure used by the
industry to indicate oil volumes that could be recovered from
undiscovered deposits.
--Jeff Fick in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this article.
Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@dowjones.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires