LIMA (Reuters) - Colombia’s Ecopetrol and South Korea’s National Oil Corporation (KNOC) said on Friday they have bought Petro-Tech, a privately held U.S. oil firm with offshore assets in Peru.

Each state-run oil company paid half of the estimated $900 million price tag and secured a 50 percent stake in the firm.
Petro-Tech, owned by private U.S. firm Offshore International Group, has shallow-water offshore blocks in Peru covering more than 5 million acres. It produces small amounts of oil and gas, but recent discoveries point to its potential.
In June, it made a natural gas discovery at Block Z-2B, five miles (7.5 km) off the northern coast in Piura, close to its San Pedro field, discovered in 2005.
The two fields have reserves estimated at up to 1.2 trillion cubic feet. In April, the company found an oil reserve of 1.13 billion barrels at block Z-6, also in northern Peru.
Petro-Tech currently produces some 12,000 barrels of crude oil per day, a figure its new owners hope to double in the next three years by increasing spending.
“We are thinking of investing, on average, $250 million a year for the next five to six years,” Nelson Navarrete, Ecopetrol’s vice president of exploration and production, told reporters at a conference in Peru’s capital, Lima.
Navarrete was joined by a KNOC official, but no one from Petro-Tech was available.
Petro-Tech has been criticized in local media recently for its possible involvement in a bribery scandal that forced roughly half the government’s cabinet out of office last year.
Under the deal, KNOC and Ecopetrol share management rights, but the South Korean firm will have the power to appoint the chief executive.
Last year, China’s top two oil companies, CNPC and Sinopec Group, were reported to have teamed up to submit a joint bid for Petro-Tech, while Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) was also reportedly interested in the purchase.
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Ecopetrol’s investment in Petro-Tech is part of a plan to expand internationally and to reach its goal of producing some 1 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2015.
KNOC will continue reviewing several foreign energy firms for additional acquisitions this year as it seeks to raise reserves six-fold by snapping up depressed resource assets, South Korea’s energy ministry said in a statement.
KNOC’s move shows Asia’s hunger for resource assets remains voracious despite the global financial crisis, and the region is prepared to risk further commodity price downside to power economic growth that is still significantly faster than in the United States and western Europe.
Oil prices have plunged to around $40 a barrel in January, compared with a record-high above $147 in July.
The government of Peru, a net oil importer, is actively encouraging foreign companies to invest to help boost oil and gas output.