Benchmark Group is a privately held investment group based in Singapore, and was founded by Al Njoo over 25 years ago. Al started his career in banking with JPMorgan-Chase, covering Asia-Pacific for infrastructure and energy finance.
Since 1997, Benchmark Group, a co-founder of Nations Energy (Calgary) has acquired, developed, and successfully monetized three previous oil developments in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and California.
All of these projects had negligible production at the time of acquisition and were assets considered too difficult or uneconomic to develop. Through its use of skilled operators and cost-efficient contractors, Nations Energy successfully created value-accretive developments out of these assets.
The Group is now participating in the energy transition with a focus on solar, hydrogen, nuclear, and building integrated supply chains from key resources (nickel, copper, metallurgical coal).
Benchmark
Successful energy developments
Karazhanbas, Kazakhstan
The most significant of Benchmark’s past developments was the Karazhanbas Field in Kazakhstan. Acquired in 1997, Nations Energy (co-founded by Benchmark) invested US$500M over the next ten years to rehabilitate the oilfield, establishing production of 50,000 barrels of oil per day.
Mishovdag-Kalameddin, Azerbaijan
At the time of acquisition, there were approximately 900 wells, but only 300 of them were producing. Nations Energy executed an extensive well repair and recompletion program as well as installing new water separation and reinjection facilities in order to fix historical pipeline corrosion problems. This development program was supported by a US$45 million debt and equity facility from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).
Northwest Lost Hills, California
When Nations Energy acquired a 100% interest in the Northwest Lost Hills, California, heavy oil field, it was a completely greenfield development — there was no production, steam flood infrastructure, nor central processing facilities. Within 5 years, production reached 4,000 barrels of oil per day from 271 wells.
