LIMA, Peru (AP) - Royal Dutch Shell PLC may invest up to $300 million in oil
and natural gas exploration in northern Peru, a company official said Thursday,
a decade after the Anglo-Dutch company suspended gas exploration operations
here.
Adolfo Heeren, chief of Shell's Peru operations, said in a news conference
that the company will finalize a partnership with Houston-based BPZ Energy Inc.
in the next few months to explore for gas and oil in northwestern Peru near its
border with oil-rich Ecuador.
BPZ may invest a similar amount in exploration and up to US$150 million in
an electric plant in the region, said company President Manuel Pablo Zuniga. BPZ
will fully control the electricity plant, but Shell would have the option of
buying a 50 percent stake.
Both companies signed a memorandum of understanding in June for joint
exploration, and company officials hope to wrap up negotiations by the end of
the year.
If natural gas reserves prove sufficient to meet local demand, the companies
may also develop plans to export liquid natural gas, Zuniga said
Shell and what was then Mobile Oil Corp. pulled out of a US$3 billion
project to develop the massive Camisea gas fields in Peru's southern Andes in
mid-1998. Both companies wanted more control over the sale and marketing of gas
than the government had offered.
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com
lam
COPYRIGHT
Copyright Thomson Financial News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
The copying, republication or redistribution of Thomson Financial News Content,
including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior
written consent of Thomson Financial News.
|