Northern Oil buys three licenses off Brazil

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, May 23 -- Northern Oil ASA-NaturGass(USA) AS (Northern Oil), Oslo, has signed an agreement to buy three licenses in the Camamu and Almada basins off Brazil.

One license covers the 2000 Manati gas discovery scheduled on stream in 2006 (OGJ Online, May 16, 2005).

South of Manati is another discovery with 10 million bbl of oil and 2 billion cu m of natural gas. This field extends into a third-party field and is expected to be unitized.

Northern Oil will pay $85 million for the licenses, including dry hole and testing costs for five exploration wells scheduled to be drilled this year, costs for drilling delineation wells, and costs for building infrastructure in Manati field.

It has a 10% interest in Manati field and 18.33% interest in the other two licenses.

Other partners in the licenses are Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) 35%, Queiroz Galvao Perfuracoes SA 30%, and Starfish Oil & Gas SA 7.5%.

Petrobras is operator of the three licenses. Drilling is scheduled in each.

Under the agreement, Northern Oil will own a 10% stake in a 125-km, 24-in. pipeline, being built with a terminus close to Salvador.