Vitol joins Eni in Baleine project offshore Côte d’Ivoire

Eni announces the completion of the sale of a 30% stake in the deepwater Baleine oil and gas field development offshore Côte d’Ivoire to Vitol.

The partner interests are now Eni (operator, 47.25%), Vitol (30%) and Petroci (22,75%).

Eni said the transaction followed its strategy of accelerating monetization of new discoveries through farming down equity stakes, known as the "dual exploration model."

The company and Vitol were already partners in the OCTP and Block 4 projects offshore Ghana to the east.

Eni has been present in Cote d’Ivoire since 2015, and Baleine is the company’s first development project in the country. It discovered Baleine in 2021, bringing the field onstream just two years later in 2023.

Current production, from Phases 1 and 2, is more than 62,000 bbl/d of oil and over 75 MMcf/d of gas. This should rise to 150,000 bbl/d and 200 MMcf/d once Phase 3 is onstream.

The existing production facilities are the refurbished FPSO Baleine (ex-Firenze, Phase 1) and the upgraded FPSO Petrojarl Knarr and FSO Yamoussoukro (Phase 2). An additional FPSO will likely feature in Phase 3.