Italy’s Eni has signed an agreement with Argentina’s YPF to acquire a 50% share and operatorship in the exploration Block OFF-5 in Uruguay’s offshore.
Block OFF-5 covers an area of 16,883 km2 in water depths ranging from 800 m to 4,100 m, at 200 km from the coast.
It is currently held and operated by MIWEN, which is fully owned by YPF, and is in the first exploration period. The area falls within the unexplored part of the Atlantic Margin with close geologic analogies with proven petroleum basins.
The agreement will become effective after the approval of the Uruguayan authorities.
“Block OFF-5 represents a highly prospective area that further strengthens Eni’s exploration portfolio that combines a large and robust set of near-field and infrastructure-led exploration prospects with diversified selected high impact opportunities, on which to apply Eni’s proprietary technologies to expedite and maximize value,” Eni said in a statement.
The agreement further strengthens the collaboration between Eni and YPF, which recently have signed several agreements in the framework of the integrated upstream-midstream project Argentina LNG (ARGLNG). Eni has been selected by YPF as strategic partner of a phase of the ARLNG project and now as preferred operator of exploration projects in Uruguay.