Navitas Petroleum has told investors it will weigh bringing a strategic partner into Sea Lion, the offshore project it operates on Argentina's continental shelf.
The remark came from Gideon Tadmor, chairman of the partnership, at its most recent investor round, inside the segment devoted to the area's exploration potential. As Shale24 has learned, the formulation was exploratory: the partnership said it would examine adding a partner to help it realize that potential responsibly.
How far that intention travels is not something the disclosure resolves. For the South Atlantic project Navitas reported no mandate, no percentage and no bank, and the contrast with its other asset gives a measure of the turn the firm has taken in recent weeks.
Shenandoah is a deepwater development in the Gulf of Mexico that began producing in July 2025. It is operated by Beacon Offshore Energy, with Navitas holding a 49% working interest (WI). In the second quarter it contributed 48,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) net to the partnership, at a production cost of $9 per barrel of oil equivalent. On that asset Navitas has reported a formal process, with an investment bank retained to evaluate the sale of up to 20% of its holding, conditional on Beacon selling its own.
A 77-Well Development Plan
The scale of the plan explains why the operator is looking for company.
The Navitas development plan for the Malvinas Islands (Falkland Islands), obtained by Shale24, lays out the dimensions the company projects on the Argentine continental shelf. The northern area comprises three phases and 39 wells, holding 420 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2P plus 2C categories. First-phase production is scheduled for March 2028, with 55,000 bbl/d of processing capacity on the Aoka Mizu floating production, storage and offloading unit (FPSO). The central area adds two phases and 38 wells, 403 million boe, and declared production from December 2030.
Together the program runs to 77 wells and 823 million boe. That schedule is the base on which the partnership calculated its cash flow. The central area's share incorporates contingent resources, whose conversion depends on approval of a commercial development plan, on regulatory clearances, and on an investment decision Navitas places in the first half of 2028.
Pre-decision spending reaches $190 million on a 100% basis through the end of 2027, covering the purchase of the OSX1 vessel, long-lead equipment orders and engineering. Rockhopper Exploration plc, which holds 35% of the project, raised about $180 million in an oversubscribed London placing to fund its share, alongside an open offer of up to $20 million. Navitas retains 65% and operatorship.
What the Company Measured
The option on the OSX1 was exercised on August 17, and the partnership expects to close the purchase in September for roughly $125 million. Navitas estimates the unit will add 125,000 bbl/d of capacity and has assigned it to the central area, a specific destination that allowed the phased plan to be reordered. The memorandum for a second floating unit had emerged mid-year.
On that basis, Navitas commissioned Netherland, Sewell & Associates, the independent reserves auditor, for a reserves and resources report effective July 31 and issued in late August. The company assigned Sea Lion after-tax cash flow discounted at 10% of $5.16 billion net to its interest, in 2P plus 2C categories, against $3.55 billion for Shenandoah. The report uses a long-term Brent price of $76/bbl.
Argentine Law Reaches Any Incoming Partner
One reading that has to be made is that under Argentine legislation, anyone taking a stake in Sea Lion falls under Law 26,659. The statute bars any individual or company, domestic or foreign, that operates or is authorized to operate in Argentina, and their shareholders, from conducting hydrocarbon activity on the continental shelf without Argentine authorization, and from holding direct or indirect stakes in companies that do.
Article 3 sets disqualification of five to twenty years following an administrative process and provides that any hydrocarbon concessions those parties hold revert to the national or provincial states. Article 5 bars the national government, the provinces and the municipalities from contracting with them, with their controlled entities or with their shareholders. The Secretariat of Energy is the enforcement authority.
Argentina's foreign ministry opened the process against Chrysaor Holdings, Harbour Energy, the U.K.-based E&P company, and Navitas Petroleum LP over their activity in the project. In April 2022 it announced the resolution disqualifying the Israeli partnership for twenty years, the maximum the statute allows. Harbour Energy withdrew from the project after the proceedings began.
The sanctions regime and the companies it reaches make up the framework in force over Argentina's insular territory. The islands form part of the province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida e Islas del Atlántico Sur, and the national constitution ratifies the sovereignty claim in its first transitory provision.
A Week of Definitions
On August 31, a week after the Navitas investor round, U.S. President Donald Trump answered reporters in the Oval Office: "I always review every position. That's just one of many." Trump gave no signal on whether the review will change the U.S. reading, which has avoided taking sides since 1982.
The timing is not incidental. Tadmor had argued to his investors that geopolitical turbulence raises the energy security premium and discourages investment decisions in jurisdictions with political instability. He said it to explain his portfolio's position in the Atlantic basin. Investing alongside Navitas will cost more from here.