Venezuela has awarded BP a licence to develop the offshore Loran gas field alongside state-backed partners from the UAE and Qatar, marking the British company's return to a country whose energy sector has been reopening to foreign investors since US forces captured Nicolás Maduro, Euronews reports.
The agreement signed in Caracas on Thursday gives the company operatorship of Loran phase two, an offshore gas project holding more than four trillion cubic feet of proven gas resources, with Abu Dhabi's XRG, Qatar's UCC Oil and Gas Holding taking equal stakes beside it.
It is the clearest signal yet that the opening of Venezuela's energy industry to foreign capital, underway since Maduro's removal, is gathering pace.
All three companies will hold equal working interests, with BP as operator, and the licence remains subject to regulatory approvals.
PDVSA Gas, the state producer's gas arm, transferred part of its interest to XRG, the international investment vehicle of Abu Dhabi's ADNOC. For both XRG and UCC, a unit of the Qatari conglomerate of the same name, this marks a first entry into Venezuela.
The field itself is shared as Loran forms the Venezuelan portion of the Loran-Manatee accumulation, which straddles the maritime boundary with Trinidad and Tobago and holds roughly 10 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in total.
Shell won the licence for the first phase in June and is separately developing Manatee on the Trinidadian side, where first gas is expected next year.
