Warburg Pincus to fund $600 mn to Rahul Dhir's Delonex Energy

An investor consortium led by private equity firm Warburg Pincus today agreed to provide USD 600 million in equity capital to Delonex Energy, the firm floated by former Cairn India chief executive Rahul Dhir.

Dhir, who after quitting Cairn India in August last year had put together a new Africa-focused oil and gas explorer, said Delonex Energy is looking at taking over oil properties in Central and East Africa.

"The region has similar geology as the region we operated in India," he told PTI from Nairobi. "We will concentrate on central and east Africa where there had been several world-class oil and gas discoveries in recent years but we find the area has remained massively unexplored."

Delonex would seek new licences as well as look for opportunities to partner companies that had already taken early-stage exploration positions. "We are looking at farm-in opportunities as well as operating positions," he said.

"...An affiliate of Warburg Pincus, a global private equity firm focused on growth investing, has agreed to lead an investment of up to USD 600 million in the company," Delonex said in a statement.

Dhir said Delonex is examining rift systems in east Africa running from the Red Sea through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania to Mozambique along with the coastal margins of east Africa and the central African rift system running via Chad and South Sudan.

"Delonex Energy plans on accessing opportunities in these areas through farm-in and direct awards from host governments," he said.

He aims to leverage on the experience gained in operating Barmer basin oilfields as well as Cambay basin oil and gas fields of Cairn India.

Delonex, he said, will focus on onshore and shallow water exploration in Central and East Africa, where only 600 wells have been drilled so far.

The firm will avoid the deep water exploration that has driven some of the excitement over the region's potential to emerge as a leading supplier of oil and liquefied natural gas.

Rahul said Delonex's technical team sits in London and it has offices in Nairobi and New Delhi. David Ginger, who was Cairn India's exploration head, has joined him and is Director of Exploration and Subsurface.

Delonex is the latest in a long line of energy sector ventures backed by Warburg Pincus. Over the past two decades, the private equity group has committed USD 6 billion of equity to companies such as Kosmos Energy, the Texan explorers who led the discovery of Ghana's offshore Jubilee field in 2007.

Other companies in Warburg Pincus's portfolio of investments include Antero Resources, a pioneer in US shale gas production, and North Sea explorers Fairfield Energy and Explora Petroleum.