Total and China National Petroleum (CNPC) through their subsidiaries have signed a farm-out agreement with Tethys Petroleum’s wholly-owned subsidiary Kulob Petroleum for the Bokhtar Production Sharing Contract (PSC) in Tajikistan.
The farm-out agreement was signed between Kulob Petroleum and Total’s subsidiary Total E&P Tajikistan and CNPC’s wholly-owned subsidiary China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Corporation’s (CNODC) subsidiary CNODC Coop.
As per the agreement, Kulob, Total E&P and CNODC Coop will each have equal interest in the PSC.
Tethys’ Bokhtar project is estimated to have gross unrisked mean recoverable prospective resources of 27.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent which has 114 trillion cubic feet of gas and 8.5 billion barrels of oil.
The Bokhtar oil and gas project has been entirely funded by Tethys so far, and the proceeds of $60m that Kulob will receive from
Total and CNODC will be used to repay the loans taken from Tethys for the project.
Kulob will be a part of the initial work program to pay 33.33% of its share of costs. The initial work program involves acquiring further seismic data and drilling deep exploration well.
Tethys Petroleum president and executive chairman David Robson said the agreement will provide the company with funds to speed up its projects.
"It rewards us for taking the first steps into Tajikistan in 2006 and validates our extensive technical work to date," Robson added.
Subject to the approval from the Tajikistan government and state consents, the agreement is expected to close in the first quarter of 2013.