Western Independents Crash Out of Africa

The European/American independent E&P company has become an endangered species in Africa.

This type of company is either farming down from transformational projects, being swallowed a whole or leaving the continent on its own volition.

Occidental’s ongoing purchase of Anadarko, the most aggressive independent  explorer on the continent,  comes with a parallel transaction: all of Anadarko’s assets in Africa (Algeria, Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa) would be taken over by TOTAL, the French major. This is happening at a time that TOTAL and CNOOC are finalizing their purchase of two thirds of Tullow’s equity in Uganda and three years after Shell bought over BG, a British independent with significant presence in Egypt and Tunisia.

In the last five years, Afren has gone bankrupt, ConocoPhillips has left Africa. Ophir Energy has sold itself to Medco Energi, the Indonesian Oil and Gas Company and Marathon has considerably wound down.

There are exceptions to this trend, of course. But how striking are those outliers?

Find out in Africa Oil+Gas Report’s 2019 edition of Independents’ Day, the magazine’s once-a -year review of activities of foreign independent companies operating in Africa. It is our May 2019 edition.

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