Blackstone Group LP (BX) and Warburg Pincus L.P., the private equity owners of Kosmos Energy LLC, are considering taking the oil company public as an alternative to a sale of the company, the Financial Times reported Thursday. A potential public offering of Texas-based Kosmos in either the U.S. or U.K. could value the company at about $5 billion, the report noted.
Kosmos is the operator of Ghana's large Jubilee oil field. Blackstone and Warburg are considering taking Kosmos public after the company's $4 billion deal to sell its 23.5% stake in the Jubilee oil field and other Ghana assets to ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) collapsed in August due to opposition from Ghana due to the huge profit that Kosmos stood to make.
The Ghana government later expressed its interest in obtaining the stake through state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corp. and even negotiated for a bridging loan with CNOOC Ltd. (CEO), the Chinese state oil company. The Ghana government raised objections as it wants to control who participates in a venture critical to the country's fortunes and also due to objections about the way Kosmos set about the stake sale.
Kosmos began to look for bidders for its share of the Jubilee oil field more than a year ago. Other oil companies such as Norway's Statoil ASA (STO), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS-B, RDSA.L), BP plc (BP, BP.L) and Brazil's Petrobras (PBR) had at various times expressed an interest in acquiring the stake, although BP changed its position after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Kosmos, together with its partners U.K.-listed Tullow Oil plc (TLW.L) and U.S.-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) discovered Jubilee in 2007. Tullow owns a 34.7% stake in the Jubilee project, while Anadarko owns a 23.5% stake and Ghana National Petroleum owns a 13.7% stake. The field, which has a potential of about 1.8 billion barrels, is expected to pump 120,000 barrels of oil per day by the middle of 2011.
According to the FT report, a public listing of Kosmos is expected to help the company's private equity owners avoid interference from Ghana, as it would not amount to a change of control. It could also be a negotiating tactic to push up the price of an expected bid for the company by Ghana National Petroleum Corp.
The value of Kosmos is said to have increased after the company entered into the deal with ExxonMobil, due to another discovery offshore Ghana and the increased proximity of first oil from the Jubilee field later this year. In August, Tullow announced tests at its Owo field, also in Ghana, which showed the oil field to have a potential as great as Jubilee.
Blackstone and Warburg Pincus are keen to cash in on some of their stake in Kosmos, as they have invested $800 million into the venture. An IPO would give them a route to raise more capital for Kosmos as it seeks to develop the Jubilee field and continues its exploration activities.
A London listing of Kosmos would be an obvious choice as the company's partners in the Jubilee field, Tullow oil and Anadarko Petroleum, are already listed there. However, Blackstone and Warburg are also said to be considering a possible U.S. listing.
However, any public listing of Kosmos could be complicated by a Ghanaian corruption investigation into links between the company and EO Group, the local partner that helped facilitate the U.S. group's entry into Ghana in 2004. EO Group, which owns a 1.75% stake in Jubilee, is a company with close ties to former Ghana president John Agyekum Kufuor.
In May, the U.S. reportedly ended a corruption probe in Kosmos without filing charges after Anadarko reported Kosmos to US authorities for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
BX closed Thursday's regular trading session on the NYSE at $10.23, down $0.21 or 2.01% on a volume of 3.02 million shares.
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June 05, 2026 16:18 ET A busy week for economic news flow saw a slew of reports being released that reflected the trends in the U.S. labor market. In Europe, economic growth and inflation data gained attention as the European Central Bank and Bank of England head for policy session later in the month. In Asia, the monetary policy session of the Indian central bank was in focus as the country, a major oil importer, reels under the pressures of a weaker rupee and rising inflation.