Boru Energy will target acquisitions of up to $1 billion, focussing on oil and gas opportunities across Sub-Saharan Africa

LONDON – Global investment firm, The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ:CG), announced today that it has agreed to partner with Aidan Heavey and Tom Hickey, through Boru Energy, a new platform that will target acquisitions of oil & gas assets across Sub-Saharan Africa. Aidan Heavey and Tom Hickey are well-regarded industry veterans with extensive investment experience investing in African oil & gas assets.

Boru Energy’s investment goal will be to assemble a portfolio of primarily non-operated interests in oil & gas production assets. The potential portfolio will be spread across several Sub-Saharan Africa countries and will consist of assets with significant commercialisation potential and where the operator is a high quality national, international or independent oil and gas company.

Funding for potential investments will come from Carlyle International Energy Partners, L.P. (CIEP), a fund that focuses on oil and gas exploration & production, midstream, and refining and marketing in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. CIEP first invested in Africa in 2017, when Carlyle-backed Assala Energy acquired Shell’s onshore assets in Gabon. Boru Energy will benefit from the strong experience and industry expertise Carlyle has in this region and globally. This investment is led by Managing Director and Head of CIEP Marcel van Poecke and Managing Director Bob Maguire.

Aidan Heavey is the founder and former Chairman and CEO of Tullow Oil PLC, an Africa-focused exploration and production company listed on the London Stock Exchange. Under Heavey’s leadership, Tullow grew into a FTSE 100 company with production of over 80,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Tom Hickey was CFO of Tullow Oil between 2000 and 2008, where he worked closely with Mr Heavey, and has since held various management positions in the oil & gas industry.

Marcel van Poecke, Managing Director, and Head of the CIEP team, said: “Carlyle are pleased to partner with Aidan Heavey and Tom Hickey, both of whom have proven track records of successfully growing significant energy investments.  We look forward to providing them with support and capabilities in order to help Boru Energy as it builds a successful platform for investing in oil & gas opportunities across Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Aidan Heavey commented: “Boru Energy will build on our team’s experience and commitment to investing in Africa.  We will seek to invest to secure and increase production levels, extend field life cycles and support partners and governments to achieve long term, sustainable growth and create value.  We are committed to achieving best-in-class safety, environmental, social performance and transparent stakeholder partnerships. We look forward to working with Carlyle, future industry partners and our team on this exciting opportunity.”
For More Information:

The Carlyle Group:
Rory Macmillan
Roderick.Macmillan@carlyle.com
+44 (0) 207 894 1630

About the Carlyle Group

The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global investment firm with deep industry expertise that deploys private capital across four business segments: Corporate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Credit and Investment Solutions. With $223 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2019, Carlyle’s purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, portfolio companies and the communities in which we live and invest. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,775 people in 33 offices across six continents. www.carlyle.com

About Carlyle’s Energy Platform

Carlyle has constructed a broad-based global energy, natural resources and infrastructure platform (currently with $27 billion in assets under management and 95 active portfolio companies), consisting of International Energy, North American Energy, North American Power and Global Infrastructure.

About CIEP

Established in May 2013, the CIEP team focuses on oil and gas exploration and production mid- & downstream, refining and marketing and oil field services in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The CIEP team focuses on transactions where it has a distinctive competitive advantage and can create tangible value for companies in which it invests, through industry specialization, deployment of human capital and access to The Carlyle Group’s global network. The team operates primarily from offices in London while leveraging Carlyle’s local offices to pursue opportunities across Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America and is reinforced by The Carlyle Group’s regional fund teams and global investment professionals.

The CIEP team consists of 16 investment professionals, all with extensive international oil and gas industry investment and operational expertise. In addition to Marcel van Poecke, it includes Managing Directors Bob Maguire and Joost Dröge, both industry veterans with 55 years’ combined successful energy investing experience, as well as Paddy Spink, Senior Advisor to CIEP, with 35 years’ upstream experience in Africa, Latin America & Europe.

About Aidan Heavey

During his 33-year tenure at Tullow, Heavey developed Tullow into a company that maintains 80 exploration and production licenses in 15 countries in South America and Africa. Tullow is listed on the London, Irish, and Ghana Stock Exchanges. In 2017, Heavey stepped down as CEO of Tullow; however, he remained chairman until July 2018.

Tullow expanded in the 2000s through a series of acquisitions, most prominently the acquisition of Energy Africa in 2004, which doubled the company’s size by expanding Tullow’s production and exploration capabilities across Africa. In 2007, Tullow discovered and began production at the Jubilee oilfield—one of the largest oilfields in Africa—off the coast of Ghana. The company has continued to grow and had an exploration success rate of 70 percent, most recently offshore Guyana.

About Tom Hickey

Tom Hickey is an experienced oil & gas executive with more than 20 years of experience, including more than 10 years serving as a CFO at oil and gas exploration and production companies. From 2000 to 2008, Hickey was the CFO of London-headquartered E&P company Tullow. While at Tullow, Hickey oversaw the company’s USD 1.1 billion acquisition of Hardman Resources in 2007 and USD 570 million acquisition of Energy Africa in 2004. From 2011 to 2016, Hickey served as the corporate development officer and CFO of the Dublin-headquartered oil and gas exploration and production company PetroCeltic International PLC.