Brazil's HRT Signs Farm-Out Agreement With Galp for 3 Namibia Fields

   By Jeffrey T. Lewis 
 

BRASILIA--Brazilian oil startup HRT Participacoes em Petroleo SA (HRTPY, HRTP3.BR, HRP.V) said Monday it signed a farm-out agreement with Portugal's Galp Energia (GALP.LB) covering three fields off the coast of Namibia.

The agreement covers the PEL 23 field in the Walvis basin and the PEL 24 and 28 fields in the Orange basin. Under the terms of the agreement, Galp will cover part of HRT's costs for operating the initial wells, up to a certain limit, HRT said in a regulatory filing.

HRT said last week that the latest study of the company's exploration blocks off the coast of Namibia boosted the amount of oil the areas could potentially hold ahead of an expected stake sale.

HRT said that a report by industry consultants group DeGolyer and MacNaughton pegged average prospective resources in the company's offshore acreage in Namibia at 7.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, up nearly 7% from estimates in 2011. Average prospective resources are a preliminary measure used by the industry to indicate oil volumes that could be recovered from undiscovered deposits.

--Jeff Fick in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this article.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at [e-mail]

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