L&W and M&A steer Peruvian oil block sale

Three Latham & Watkins LLP offices and Miranda & Amado Abogados in Lima have advised on the selling of an oil block

Three Latham & Watkins LLP offices and Miranda & Amado Abogados in Lima have counselled Colombian oil company Ecopetrol and South Korean counterpart Korea National Oil Corporation -KNOC on the sale of the Offshore International Group (OIG) – which operates oil fields in Peru – to US investor De Jong Capital. The sale was announced on 19 January for an undisclosed amount.

Ecopetrol and Korea National Oil Corporation bought OIG back in 2019 for $ 900 million. They held 50% each in the company, the entirety which has been transferred to De Jong.

OIG is incorporated in Texas and operates oil exploration sites and fields in the US and Peru. Among its assets, it holds a 100% stake in two operational oil blocks that lie adjacent to each other in the Talara basin off the coast of northern Peru, through OIG´s Peruvian subsidiary, Savia Peru. The fields – Z-2B and Z-6 – are also operated by OIG´s subsidiary, Savia Perú, and produced an average of 11,300 barrels per day in 2019.

Savia Perú, which is one of Peru’s biggest oil producers, obtained asset-backed financing of $ 42 million in 2019.

Counsel to Ecopetrol and Korea National Oil Corporation

Latham & Watkins LLP: partner and co-director for Latin America, Tony Del Pino (pictured top right), associates Alan Rozen Porteny and Francisco Lanusse, and international visiting associate Vicente Allende in New York; partner Enrique Rene de Vera in Chicago (pictured bottom right); and associate Carlos Ardila in Washington, DC.

Miranda & Amado Abogados: partner Guillermo Bracamonte (pictured left) and associates Cynthia Rebaza, Luis Miguel Sánchez, Talía Díaz, Chantal Deleplanque, María Alejandra Pons Muzzo and Valerio Ossorio in Lima.