Uganda. Italy-based Eni Spa has applied to the Ugandan government to be allowed to re-enter the country's oil sector in order to offer more investment opportunities in the upcoming oil sector, officials said Wednesday.
Officials at the ministry of energy and minerals development said Eni wrote to the government early this month asking for an opportunity to be allowed back.
"Eni says that it has already spent $15 million to prepare an oil development plan for Uganda's oil sector, they want to be given a second chance," an official said. Eni couldn't comment immediately.
Eni announced that it had quit the country's oil sector in February after UK-based Tullow Oil PLC pre-empted its $1.5 billion deal with Heritage Oil PLC for half stakes in blocks 1 and 3A in the Lake Albert basin.
However, Claudio Descalzi, Eni's chief operations officer, wrote to Uganda's minister of energy earlier this month saying the company had committed enormous financial and human resources to Uganda's oil sector in the last six months and should be allowed back.
"We are prepared to reconsider our position as long as Eni is offered an opportunity to play a role in the Ugandan oil industry which is compatible," he wrote in a letter seen by Dow Jones Newswires.
Since last month, Eni executives have been in the country, trying to lobby government officials.
Government sources said talks with Tullow and its proposed partners, Cnooc Ltd. and France-based Total SA, are at an advanced stage on developing oil assets but the government hasn't yet formally approved Tullow's proposed takeover of Heritage interests.
Tullow and Heritage have discovered around 1 billion barrels in three exploration areas in the Lake Albert basin.
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