Abu Dhabi awards China’s CEFC 4% of oil concession for $900m

Abu Dhabi awarded a 4 per cent stake in its giant onshore oil concession to CEFC China Energy Co for a fee of Dhs3.3bn ($900m), state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) said on Monday.

The stake is the last to be awarded in the concession after international energy companies including Total, BP and China’s CNPC secured stakes. ADNOC owns 60 per cent of the concession.

The onshore fields, operated by Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Petroleum Operations (ADCO), have total resources estimated at between 20 billion and 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent over the term of the concession.

On Sunday, CNPC secured an 8 per cent stake in ADCO for about $1.8bn.

For little-known, privately run CEFC the deal, which has a term of 40 years and is backdated to the start of 2015, marks one of its largest oil investments outside China.

Chinese oil executives said last week that both CNPC and CEFC were set to sign the concession deals with ADNOC after having obtained state regulatory clearance for the investments.

France’s Total was the first major oil company to renew its involvement in the concession, securing a 10 per cent stake in January 2015 and putting its rivals under pressure to improve terms after ADNOC said Total made the best offer.

In December, BP struck a similar pact with ADNOC for a 10 per cent stake.

Other Asian energy companies were granted smaller stakes.‎ INPEX Corp of Japan and GS Energy of South Korea received 5 per cent and 3 per cent stakes respectively.