Gabon Oil Company completes acquisition of Tullow assets: CEO

Gabon's National Oil Company has completed its purchase of Tullow Oil's upstream business in the Central African country, its CEO Marcellin Simba Ngabi told Platts July 29, marking a second major acquisition by the state-owned oil firm.

In an interview at the London offices of Assala Energy -- which Gabon Oil Company purchased from US private equity firm Carlyle a year ago -- Ngabi said the $307-million Tullow deal had closed earlier in the day.

The transaction was carried out with the help of a $220-million loan from trading house Gunvor, which also financed the Assala deal, and $87 million in cash from GOC's own funds, Ngabi said.

"They [Gunvor] are confident in us, further indicated by their support in financing the Tullow deal, which was successfully closed today," he said.

Tullow confirmed the completion of the deal in a statement of its own later July 29, noting that it marked the end of its 21-year tenure in Gabon.

Platts reported in May that GOC had secured a new loan for the deal from Gunvor, rather than using remaining funds from the $1-billion Assala purchase.

The deal covers Tullow Gabon in its entirety, handing the state firm net production of just over 10,000 b/d from assets operated by the independent Anglo-French company Perenco.

While the acquisition did not shock the industry like GOC's Assala pre-emption deal, Tullow assets had drawn interest from foreign companies, sources familiar with the matter told Platts, part of S&P Global Energy.

Both deals, as well as the takeover of small oil projects ditched by China's Addax last year, have been cast by Gabonese officials as a key step toward energy sovereignty.

"It's up to us, the Gabonese state, to define our future," Ngabi told Platts of the recent deals, adding, "We must continue to develop and invest. We accept to take on this risk as it's a vital risk for us."

Meanwhile, Gabonese president Brice Oligui Nguema has made increasing state control of Gabon's lifeblood oil sector a priority since seizing power in a coup in August 2023, and it was also a key talking point during recent elections, which he won handily.

It has also caused jitters among some existing and would-be investors in Gabon's upstream sector.

"Yesterday we bought Assala, today we bought Tullow, tomorrow we'll be buying the drilling service company SMP Afrique -- all of it follows the same logic and strategy," the GOC chief, who was in London to complete the deal, said.

"We are not pursuing operators asking for them to sell to us. SMP was on sale; if we didn't buy, someone else would. Tullow was on sale; had we not bought it, someone else would, and the same was the case with Assala. We are not looking to push other players out of the market."

GOC completed its Assala purchase in June 2024, giving it control of 48,000 b/d of crude production, as well as pipelines and an export terminal.

The pre-emption ended efforts by French company Maurel & Prom -- which is part-owned by Indonesia's Pertamina -- to acquire Assala from Carlyle.

Since then, Assala, which is run from London and Libreville, has managed to boost production, deploying significant capex for workovers, infill drilling and infrastructure-driven exploration, according to company sources.

Africa-focused Tullow is gradually offloading "non-core" assets -- including in Gabon and Kenya -- as it looks to reduce its debt burden and strengthen its balance sheet, while focusing on its core Ghanaian oil and gas projects.

Richard Miller, interim CEO of the London-based company, said the GOC deal "represents another key milestone that accelerates the deleveraging of Tullow", adding that the company is focused on completing its Kenya divestment deal with local player Gulf Energy in 2025.