BP to sell 20% stake in Manakin gas field to Trinidad's NGC

BP has agreed to sell a 20% stake in a block that contains the Trinidad portion of the cross-border Cocuina-Manakin natural gas field to the country's state-owned National Gas Company (NGC), the company said on Monday in an emailed statement.

BP and NGC signed the deal on Monday, BP said.

The Cocuina-Manakin field, which contains 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves, straddles the maritime boundary between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela, with the Cocuina section forming part of Venezuela's undeveloped Deltana Platform gas project.

NGC already holds a 20% stake of the Cocuina portion on the Venezuelan side. The latest agreement comes less than four months after Venezuela granted BP a license to develop the field.

BP and NGC have agreed to market 70% of the project's gas to Atlantic LNG, which operates Latin America's largest liquefied natural gas export facility, according to the sources. The complex has struggled in recent years due to declining domestic natural gas supplies in Trinidad, which has constrained output and forced the closure of one of its four trains.

BP owns a 45% stake in Atlantic LNG, while NGC holds 10% and Shell owns the remaining 45%. Venezuela's oil ministry and NGC did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Development at Cocuina-Manakin is progressing toward a final investment decision, which two sources with knowledge of the matter said they expected by the end of the year. The remaining 30% of produced natural gas at Cocuina-Manakin will be used in petrochemicals.