Carlyle International Energy Partners (CIEP) is planning to invest around 10% to 20% of the $2.5bn fund’s capital in oil and gas industry in Africa, according to The Carlyle Group, a global alternative asset manager.

“We are evaluating several potential deals in Africa at the moment, including looking at the acquisition of portfolios of upstream interests and providing capital to existing players to finance development and / or acquisitions,” a company spokesperson told Africa Global Funds.

“We have done considerable work studying the oil market in Africa (including Nigeria, among others) and believe there may be opportunities in the future to acquire material producing fields from the Majors, particularly by capitalizing indigenous partners to acquire / develop these fields.”

The Carlyle Group announced the final close of its first international energy fund last week, attracting $2.5bn from institutional investors.

CIEP invests in oil and gas exploration and production (E&P), mid & downstream, refining and marketing (R&M) and oil field services (OFS) in Africa, Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The typical ticket size for deals in Africa is around $250m equity with additional capital available from other funds within Carlyle and co-investors.

In December 2013, CIEP made its first investment in Discover Exploration, an oil and gas exploration company based in the UK that focuses on Africa, Latin America and Asia.

“We believe there are attractive opportunities in our exploration platform, Discover Exploration, which has acreage in the Comoros (offshore East Africa),” said a spokesperson.

“We also think large-scale oil assets are attractive – we would consider assets in both production and development.”

CIEP is the largest first-time fund in the firm’s history, which began raising capital in mid-2013 and has attracted 160 investors.

Carlyle Chairman Daniel A. D’Aniello said: “We are grateful for the support of our investors who share our excitement at the current investment opportunities across the international oil and gas sector.”

The final close of CIEP further expands Carlyle’s global energy offering and brings more than $10bn of capital to invest across the sector through CIEP (led by Marcel van Poecke), NGP Energy Capital Management (led by Ken Hersh), Carlyle Power Partners (co-headed by Robert Mancini and Matt O’Connor) and Carlyle Energy Mezzanine Opportunities Fund (co-headed by David Albert and Rahul Culas).

Marcel van Poecke, Managing Director and Head of CIEP, added the fundraising effort reflects the market’s confidence in Carlyle and their ability to create value in the international energy sector.

“This is one of the best energy investing environments I’ve seen in more than 30 years in the industry. Carlyle’s broad energy platform plus a significant amount of dry powder enables us to leverage current opportunities and market volatility across the global energy markets,” he said.

The CIEP team consists of 14 investment professionals, all with extensive international oil and gas industry investment and operational expertise.

In addition to Marcel van Poecke, it includes Managing Directors Bob Maguire and Joost Dröge, both industry veterans with 55 years’ combined successful energy investing experience, as well as Paddy Spink, Senior Advisor to CIEP, with 35 years’ upstream experience in Africa, Latin America & Europe.