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M&A Africa: Maersk Invests $845M In Africa Oil’s Kenya, Ethiopia Blocks

M&A Africa: Maersk Invests $845M In Africa Oil’s Kenya, Ethiopia Blocks

A part sale of Africa Oil’s exploration blocks assets in Kenya and Ethiopia to Maersk late last year for was worth $845 million, according to a Thomson Reuters/Freeman Consulting report.

Africa-focused Canadian-based explorer, Africa Oil, announced in November that it had agreed to sell half of its shares in three onshore exploration blocks in Kenya and a further two in Ethiopia.

Denmark’s Maersk Oil beat several rivals to buy half of Africa Oil’s stakes in east African for up to $845 million, in a deal that Financial Times said cold delivered an immediate boost to the UK’s Tullow Oil, which owns 50 percent of the oil blocks.

Under the agreement Maersk is to buy a 25 per cent stake in all of the  Kenyan based-blocks and an equal 25 per cent stake in the Ethiopia Rift Basin block and a 15 per cent in the Ethiopia South Omo block.

The Africa Oil/Maersk deal is the third largest in the sub-Saharan Africa energy sector last year, after the sale of Angola oil block interests to local firm Sonangol EP for $1.7 billion and the $1.1 billion  sale of an oil mining lease by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to Eroton Group.

The largest deal in the region was the $22.6 billion reverse takeover transaction of South Africa’s Steinhoff International Holdings NV by Dutch-based Genesis International Holdings NV.