Kosmos believes West Africa is one of the world’s most prospective hydrocarbon provinces that offers multiple premier exploration opportunities. The region offers unparalleled business opportunities, impressive resource-base potential, a favorable cost structure and supportive host governments. Reserve and production growth rates in this prolific area are among the highest in the world, finding and development costs in the region are extremely competitive, and multiple reserve replacement options are plentiful.

As part of its exploration-driven organic growth strategy, the company is pursuing:

• Primary exploration plays in frontier, emerging and established basins in deep water.
• Secondary exploration of new plays in developing and mature basins.

Kosmos continues to create a first-class asset portfolio in West Africa’s deep waters by capturing acreage positions through new-venture licensing rounds or open applications and farm-ins. The company possesses the technical, operational and commercial experience in the region to expedite production and development projects, thereby maximizing the value of host countries’ assets.

Kosmos forms partnerships with established industry players and local governments, and collaborates with local entrepreneurs. The company’s goal is to access an interest in each project that meets its criteria and serve as operator if appropriate. In the normal course of business, Kosmos will withdraw from licenses that the company believes no longer offer sufficient prospectivity. This is generally done after extensive evaluation of the underlying geology and geophysical data acquisition, an in-depth technical analysis and drilling. In 2009, Kosmos adhered to this strategy and withdrew from its Block 4 license in Benin and its Block OPL-320 license in Nigeria.