The management team behind an oil and gas firm sold last year for more than £1.2billion is to launch a new project.
Cove Energy founders Michael Blaha, John Craven and Michael Nolan saw their firm, which had a significant interest in lucrative prospects off Mozambique, become the subject of a takeover battle last year.
Eventually Thai state oil firm PTT beat off interest from Shell for the firm, paying £1.2billion for the explorer launched as a £1million shell three years previously.
Now a new firm, Discover Exploration, has been launched by the former Cove men with the backing of the Carlyle Group.
The asset management firm is to back Discover with more than £122million over the next three years as it looks to New Zealand and Comoros.
The unlisted firm, which will be based in London, will look to focus on emerging, de-risked oil and gas basins in deep water.
Funding for the company, which has linked up with Anadarko for its exploration in New Zealand and Comoros, will be provided via Carlyle’s CIEP investment fund, which will focus on oil and gas projects.
“We are delighted that CIEP has agreed to support the Company with significant investment funding to allow us to acquire these two New Zealand opportunities and to capture other future opportunities that are available to us from host Governments and our international peers in the oil and gas industry,” said Discover chairman Michael Blaha.
“We are confident of using the success we enjoyed with Cove Energy as a bridgehead to our new endeavours.”
The initial cash investment will fund drilling in the Canterbury and Taranaki basins off New Zealand, with the first exploration well on the latter having been spudded last month.
“Discover is an outstanding company and offers an exciting opportunity to combine its international oil and gas experience with the resources we have available in Carlyle’s global energy platform,” said CIEP managing director Marcel van Poecke.
“Our investment will fund Discover’s exploration activities and enable the acquisition of additional concessions in frontier exploration geographies.”
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