Norway’s Statoil buys into Tullow’s Suriname block

LONDON, (Reuters) – Norway’s Statoil   has agreed to buy a stake in an exploration block offshore  Suriname from Tullow Oil, adding to the list of  international oil companies entering what industry sources say  could be a major new production province in South America.

Statoil is to buy a 30 percent interest in block 47, on  undisclosed terms, joining Royal Dutch Shell Plc and  France’s Total as an investor in a region Tullow calls  “the Guyanas trend”.
London-based Tullow will retain a 70 percent stake.

Tullow has bought exploration rights to large swathes of  territory offshore French Guiana, Suriname and Guyana, hoping to  replicate its success in finding big fields offshore West  Africa.
The company believes the regions have shared geology  stemming from when Africa and South America were still connected  many millions of years ago.

In September, the theory was boosted when Tullow announced  its Zaedyus well, in which Shell and Total have stakes, struck  oil offshore French Guiana.

Analysts welcomed the ‘farm-down’.

“A very sensible move by Tullow to capitalise on the Zaedyus  success/ growing interest in the Guyanas Trend by introducing a  larger partner,” Phil Corbett, analyst at Royal Bank of  Scotland, said in a note to clients.

Tullow shares traded down 0.8 percent at 0804 GMT, in line  with the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index, while  Statoil was down 0.6 percent.