Hungarian oil and gas company MOL said it has won a tender to acquire 100 percent of BaiTex from US-based VF-NEFT Development and RusOil for an undisclosed price.
BaiTex owns a license for the subsoil of the Baituganskoye oil field in Russia's Volga-Ural region, one of the country's main oil producing provinces.
The infrastructural provision of the area is good and the field has direct pipeline connection to the main Transneft pipeline system, MOL said.
The field had 66.7 million barrels of proven and probable reserves, according to a reserve audit provided by DeGolyer and MacNaughton on Dec 31, 2005. The present level of production is 1,800 bbl/day of crude with 26 API degree and low sulfur content.
But MOL plans to boost production to 14,000 bbl/day by 2014, Mol said.
The firm added that it plans to spend US$200-250 million developing the field over the coming eight to nine years.
(AFX News Limited, 29/12/06)