Norway's Equinor enters Namibia oil exploration with Chevron deal

By Nerijus Adomaitis

OSLO, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Equinor said on Tuesday it has agreed to buy a stake in an oil exploration licence in Namibia from a subsidiary of U.S. energy major Chevron as the Norwegian company seeks to boost its international portfolio.

The purchase of a 17.4% stake in the PEL 90 petroleum exploration licence in the Orange Basin offshore Namibia marked Equinor's first upstream entry into a new country since it expanded into Argentina in 2017, a company official said.

The Orange Basin, one of the world's hottest exploration zones, has had a string of oil discoveries in recent years, spurring interest from oil majors seeking to acquire acreage to explore.

Equinor, which has scaled back its ambitions to invest in renewable energy, in line with a trend among international oil companies, said its Namibia deal followed a strategy to "strengthen and replenish" its international oil and gas portfolio.

"We are always looking for interesting opportunities," an Equinor spokesperson said when asked whether the company planned to make further acquisitions in Namibia.

He declined to disclose the purchase price for the stake in the Chevron-operated exploration block, where a well is scheduled to be drilled by year-end.

Prior to the transaction, Chevron subsidiary Harmattan Energy held a 52.5% stake in PEL 90, with the other partners in the licence being QatarEnergy  with 27.5%, Trago Energy with 10% and state-owned oil company NAMCOR with 10%.

The deal with the Chevron unit remains subject to regulatory approvals and a completion process, Equinor said without elaborating.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, Terje Solsvik; Editing by Anna Ringstrom and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)