The world's three largest oil traders are competing to buy the African arm of Brazil's Petrobras that owns stakes in two major Nigerian offshore oil blocks, after submitting bids earlier this month.
Swiss-based Vitol bid together with the oil upstream subsidiary of U.S. private equity firm Warburg Pincus called Delonex and Canadian-listed Africa Energy Corp, an oil and gas exploration firm that is part of Sweden's Lundin Group. Anglo-Swiss Glencore joined with Nigerian listed firm Seplat and French firm Maurel & Prom that is majority-owned by the Indonesian government. The third bidder was privately-held Famfa Oil together with Royal Dutch Shell.
Mercuria and BP had also its potential. In early May, three consortiums including the major trading companies submitted bids to buy Petrobras Africa. Bankers have previously estimated the value of the Petrobras venture to be about $2 billion.
Last month, Petrobras also received three binding bids for its gas pipeline network company TAG. All bids were higher than the $5.2 billion Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc paid for another gas pipeline unit sold by Petrobras, Nova Transportadora do Sudeste.