SOCO

SOCO International plc is "an international oil and gas exploration and production company headquartered in London and listed on the London Stock Exchange.

• Although the Company has designated core areas in the Far East / Southeast Asia and Middle East / North Africa regions,
• it employs a strategy for building shareholder value through a portfolio of oil and gas assets." [1]

05-11-01 Oilinvest and SOCO announce the formation of a specific purpose upstream joint venture, ODEX Exploration

• To identify, develop, produce and market hydrocarbon opportunities in Libya and the surrounding countries in northern, central and western Africa.
• The joint venture is held 57 % by Oilinvest and 43 % by SOCO North Africa, a subsidiary of SOCO.
• Mutually beneficial, the JV provides Oilinvest with an entry into the upstream oil and gas industry and provides SOCO with an entry into areas where it wishes to establish new core business opportunities.

ODEX is expected to be a strong regional contender in the upstream hydrocarbon sector.

Oilinvest brings its specialized financial knowledge and management strength of its downstream petroleum operations.

SOCO has special expertise and success in identifying and exploiting complex upstream petroleum opportunities and accessing international financial networks. SOCO's financial strength and its status as a publicly listed company provide access to public financing.

ODEX has been formed to capitalize on the strengths of Oilinvest and the SOCO group to identify and secure delineated oil and gas projects, which by reason of size, complexity, economic or other reasons are available for development. ODEX will then pursue oil and gas exploration opportunities in previously identified prospective regions, which, again by reason of size, complexity, economic or other reasons are not subject to extensive competition.

Source: Rigzone

Wikipedai

SOCO -What are they doing?

SOCO International plc (LSE: SIA) is an international oil and gas exploration and production company, headquartered in London traded on the London Stock Exchange and a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. It is currently valued by the market around £900m. The Company has continuing interests in Vietnam, Yemen, Thailand and the Republic of Congo with ongoing production operations in Yemen.

Soco was formed around 1991 to exploit international opportunities as a subsidiary of Snyder Oil Corporation of the USA. Ed Story ran operations as Vice-President International and director of Snyder Oil. Roger Cagle was its CFO. Story/Cagle had worked together for 15 years beforehand at Conquest, Superior and Exxon. Soco acquired interests in Russia and Mongolia.

1 History - Pre-IPO 2 Company History 3 Key personnel 4 Current Interests 4.1 Vietnam 5 References 6 External links

The Rest at Wikipedia

Gazprom & Odex Compete for Libyan Oil Development

Originally Posted in October of 05, but of note today

-Shimron

The successful Mitsubishi-Teikoku bid for two concessions in Ghadamès basin Area 82, offering production shares of 7.5 per cent and $6 million signature bonuses, frustrated another relatively aggressive bidder.

Russia's state-owned gas giant Gazprom narrowly missed all three of the Ghadamès basin licences it bid for, in what was overall a bad result for the Russians, Tatneft excepted. It had been hoping to use EPSA-IV as a means of substantially increasing the reach of its overseas E&P.

Gazprom had been very keen on acquiring Libyan acreage, and is likely to pursue other options as a result of its failure in this round, such as an asset swap with Libya's Oilinvest. Gazprom's banking arm is a shareholder in Odex, a subsidiary of Oilinvest established three years ago with UK-based Soco International, and negotiations for Libyan-Russian asset swaps between the three parties are reportedly underway.

Soco's interest in Libya arose through the relationships between some of its non-executive directors and larger shareholders such as Pontoil Intertrade, owned by the family of Mario Contini, which has an Italian refinery among its other interests. Pontoil has a 20.55 per cent interest in Soco and Ettore Contini is a non-executive director. Mario Contini, chairman Patrick Maugein and another non-executive director, Rui de Sousa, all have a background in the downstream sector and were instrumental in bringing Soco into Libya. Gazprombank now has 20 per cent of Odex, alongside Oilinvest (46 per cent) and Soco (34 per cent).

So far, Odex has not found either upstream or downstream opportunity, partly because the government has been focused on open bidding rounds. According to Soco's Roger Cagle, "We can't compete at the levels bid in the last bid round." Rather, "our intention is to partner with Libyan companies and look for some sort of exploitation/development project. [But] with the government focusing on open bid rounds this concept takes a back seat."

Menas Associates 27-Oct-05