Oct. 7--Exxon Mobil Corp. is in talks to buy a stake in a massive oil field off the coast of Ghana for around $4 billion from Dallas' Kosmos Energy LLC, according to media reports and a person familiar with the deal.

Kosmos, a privately held oil and gas company that focuses on West Africa, sent a letter to other bidders terminating the process, according to a knowledgeable industry source, and entered exclusive talks with Irving oil giant Exxon. A sale would require approval from Ghana's government, said two people familiar with the process.

Ghana is set to become West Africa's newest oil exporter in late 2010, when output begins at the Jubilee field. The deal comes at a time when Exxon's oil production has declined and the company has said it might fail to meet its 2009 target for 2 percent output growth.

Exxon, Kosmos and the private equity companies involved in the negotiations declined to comment publicly on the deal.

"Exxon Mobil routinely evaluates potential development opportunities around the world. We do not comment on the details of commercial discussions or opportunities," Exxon spokesman Patrick McGinn said in an e-mail.

Kosmos owns less than 25 percent of the Jubilee field. Other owners include: Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Sabre Oil and Gas, EO Group and Ghana National Petroleum Corp.

The partners, together, have spent $3.2 billion to develop the field, with Kosmos contributing about a quarter of that amount.

Jubilee, which was discovered in June 2007, may hold 1.8 billion barrels of oil and will produce 120,000 barrels of crude a day, according to London-based Tullow Oil PLC, project operator and another owner of Jubilee.

Kosmos is led by James Musselman, former chief executive at Triton Energy Ltd. Triton discovered oil off the coast of Equatorial Guinea and was sold to Hess Corp., then known as Amerada Hess Corp., in 2001.

Musselman and his partners started Kosmos in late 2003 after raising $800 million from private equity investors Blackstone and Warburg Pincus.

The Jubilee sale marks the company's first asset sale. Rather than producing oil, Kosmos' business model is finding oil fields and selling them.

Staff writer Elizabeth Souder and Bloomberg News contributed to this report.

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