Carlyle pours $200m into Discover Exploration

The investment will enable the company to initiate a two-well, deep-water drilling programme in the Taranaki and Canterbury basins off the New Zealand shore through its operating partner Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. The fresh capital will also fund an exploration programme off the Comoros shore.

The investment marks Carlyle's first from its CIEP fund, a vehicle focused on oil and gas exploration and production, midstream, oil field services, refining and marketing in Europe, Africa, Latin America and Asia. The fund was established in May 2013 and operates mainly from Carlyle's London office.

Company
Headquartered in London, Discover is a geology-led oil and gas exploration company. The business was founded by the management team who created Cove Energy in 2009, and who oversaw its £1.2bn sale in 2012.

The company focuses on young and emerging basins and aims to lessen their risk through 2D and 3D seismic surveys. It also targets multi-well drilling programmes through farm-ins, farm-outs and acquisitions.

People
Discover is led by executive directors Michael Blaha, John Craven and Michael Nolan.

Marcel van Poeke is managing director and head of CIEP.

Advisers
Company - Investec (Corporate finance); Lawrence Graham (Legal).
Equity - Clifford Chance, Caroline Sherrell, Toby Parkinson (Legal). 

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• Expansion
• UK / Ireland
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• Carlyle Group