Cobalt International Energy, Inc. is a development stage

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring un ...

exploration and production company headquartered in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

. Cobalt International Energy Inc. filed for bankruptcy on December 14, 2017.

Current operations

The company has reserves deepwater in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Angola and Gabon in West Africa. The company owns a 9.375% working interest in the Heidelberg field, approximately 140 miles south of Port Fourchon off the Louisiana coast, which is operated by

Anadarko Petroleum Anadarko Petroleum Corporation was a company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. It was organized in Delaware and headquartered in two skyscrapers in The Woodlands, Texas: the Allison Tower and the Hackett Tower, both named after former CEOs of ...

History

The company was founded in November 2005. In December 2009, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

, raising $850 million. In 2012, the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a United States federal executive departments, federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of Law of the Unite ...

initiated an investigation into allegations that the company engaged in bribery in Angola, in violation of the

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA) (, ''et seq.'') is a United States federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from Bribery, bribing foreign government officials to benefit their business interests. The FCPA is applic ...

. The investigation was closed in 2017. In April 2013, James Painter, the president of the company, resigned. In 2015, the company reached an agreement to sell its Angolan assets for $1.75 billion to

Sonangol Group Group Sonangol () is a parastatal that formerly oversaw petroleum and natural gas production in Angola. The group consisted of Sonangol E.P. () and its many subsidiaries. The subsidiaries generally had Sonangol E.P. as a primary client, along wit ...

. However, the deal fell through after

Isabel dos Santos Isabel Kukanova dos Santos (; born 20 April 1973) is an Angolan businesswoman, the eldest child of Angola's former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country from 1979 to 2017. As early as 2013 ''Forbes'' described how dos Santo ...

took over the company. In May 2016, Timothy J. Cutt, formerly of

BHP BHP Group Limited, founded as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company, is an Australian multinational mining and metals corporation. BHP was established in August 1885 and is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. As of 2024, BHP was the world� ...

, was named chief executive officer of the company. Cobalt International Energy filed for bankruptcy on December 14, 2017 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston. At the time, it had 82 workers, with 31 temporary workers and 19 independent contractors. To the dismay of many, on April 10, 2018 Cobalt International Energy terminated shareholders interest in the company as part of the bankruptcy agreement.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.cobaltintl.com/ Oil companies of the United States Natural gas companies of the United States Petroleum in Texas Companies based in Houston Energy companies established in 2005 Non-renewable resource companies established in 2005 2005 establishments in Texas Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2017