Angola has blocked the sale of Marathon Oil’s 20 percent stake in an oil block in the African nation to Chinese state owned firms CNOOC and Sinopec. The two Chinese companies announced on July 17 they had agreed to pay $1.3 billion for the stake in the offshore block in a 50-50 joint venture.
"We're going to decide to exercise the right of first refusal. It's formalised already," Manuel Vicente, the head of Angola's state-owned oil company Sonangol, told Reuters on Thursday.
Sonangol, which owns a 20 percent stake in Block 32, has the right of first refusal over the sale. This right allows it, along with the other partners in the block, to step in and buy the stake for the price the Chinese firms have offered.
The highly prospective offshore block has already yielded 12 discoveries. It is operated by French oil major Total, with a 30 percent stake, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp holds 15 percent while Portugal's Galp owns 5 percent.
Sonangol's refusal to allow the Chinese firms to buy the Marathon stake is a set-back for the Asian powerhouse's campaign to secure energy assets in Africa.
Angola rivals Nigeria as Africa's biggest oil producer. China, the world's second largest oil consumer, imports more of its crude from Angola than from any other nation.
The Angolan Block 32 is estimated to have 1.5 billion barrels of oil reserves. Production is expected to start in 2012.
Houston-based Marathon announced the possible deal on July 17. At the time it said it planned to retain a 10 percent working interest in Block 32 after the sale was carried out.
A Marathon Oil spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
The $1.3 billion deal price is a comedown for Marathon, which tried to sell the stake for $2 billion in 2008, sources involved in the process said at the time.
