15th Oct 2007 09:30
Premier Oil PLC15 October 2007 Premier Oil plc Mauritania update Further to our announcement in March 2007 of the intention to dispose of ourinterests in Mauritania, Premier today announces that discussions with apreferred bidder have terminated. Since the original announcement of our intention to dispose of our Mauritanianinterests, Petronas Australia Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Petroliam NasionalBerhad ("Petronas") has announced the purchase of Woodside Energy Ltd'sMauritanian subsidiaries. Petronas will assume the operatorship of theMauritanian blocks in which Premier holds an interest when that transactioncompletes, expected in November 2007. Petronas is a current partner of Premier in the Anoa field in Indonesia and is aformer strategic shareholder in Premier. We plan to retain our interests in the producing Chinguetti field (8.23%), PSC B(9.23%) containing the Tiof and Tevet discoveries, and PSC A (4.62%) containingthe Banda discovery. Premier's Chief Executive, Simon Lockett, said: "We have decided to terminate the disposal process as we consider the offersreceived do not fully reflect the value of Premier's Mauritanian interests andat continuing strong commodity prices we can generate better value forshareholders by retaining these assets. To this end we look forward to workingwith the new operator Petronas to fully exploit the significant potential inMauritania." ENQUIRIESPremier Oil plc Tel: 020 7730 1111Simon LockettTony Durrant Pelham PRJames Henderson Tel: 020 7743 6673Gavin Davis Tel: 020 7743 6677 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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