Blackstone to invest $800m in new Asian oil and gas company

BEP, Blackstone’s energy-focused private equity business, said its partnership with Kuala Lumpur-based Tamarind Energy would focus on oil and gas development in south-east Asia.

BEP said the commitment will see Tamarind, a new exploration and production company led by a team of experienced energy industry executives, create “a significant upstream company with an emphasis on building long-term, strategic relationships with host governments, south-east Asian national oil companies and key regional stakeholders”.

BEP chief executive officer (CEO) and Blackstone’s senior managing director David Foley said: “This investment further underlines our strong support and commitment to south-east Asia following Blackstone’s Singapore office opening late last year.”

Blackstone said it has invested around $7bn of equity globally to date across a broad range of sectors within the energy industry.

Tamarind’s CEO Ian Angell, a former executive with Canada’s Talisman Energy, said: “The Tamarind team has always welcomed the opportunity to develop and improve performance of fields which others put in the ‘too hard’ basket... Blackstone’s successful track record of investing in energy assets globally and extensive industry relationships, in combination with the experience of the Tamarind team in south-east Asia, should allow us to capitalise on opportunities and be a partner of choice in the region.”

According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) oil market report for July 2014, global oil demand growth is forecast to accelerate to 1.4 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2015 from 1.2 mb/d in 2014. 

In its separate medium-term gas market report released earlier this year (5-page / 992 KB PDF), the IEA forecast a near doubling of Chinese gas demand up to 2019, compensating for “a slight slow-down in growth in many other areas of the world”.