Hungarian energy group MOL has acquired a 9.57 per cent stake in Azerbaijan’s Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) oil field and 8.9 per cent in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that transports crude to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, for a total of 1.57 billion US dollars.
MOL will team up with partners including BP, Exxon, Equinor and SOCAR in what it views as a key strategic asset. Once completed, the deal will make MOL the third largest field partner in ACG.
“This major transaction is a significant milestone in building our international exploration and production portfolio, in one of our core regions, the CIS, where we will team up with world-class partners,” said Zsolt Hernádi, MOL Group’s chairman and CEO. “Following the closing of the deal, around half of our production will come from outside the CEE region, giving us a healthy balance. With these new barrels we are also strengthening our resilient, integrated business model, which will continue to generate robust cash flow to finance the MOL 2030 transformational projects, as well as rising dividends to our shareholders.”
This Azeri asset will add around 20,000 net barrels per day to MOL’s production in coming years and will also materially increase MOL’s proven and probable reserves.
“The ACG deal marks the beginning of a new chapter in MOL’s exploration and production story as we take a significant step to deliver on our promise of inorganic reserve replacement,” said MOL Group’s Executive Vice President for Upstream Berislav Gaso. “By completing the ACG acquisition we are well positioned to preserve the excellent cash-flow generation ability of MOL’s exploration and production business for an extended period. MOL exploration and production has built a strong track record of delivering outstanding profitability over the course of the past three years and with this transaction we are continuing the transformation to international business, as promised in our 2030 strategy.”
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