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Repsol YPF SA and Hunt Oil Co. are among oil producers expected to invest a combined $1.5 billion in Peru’s oil and natural-gas industry this year as the Andean country aims to double output, a government official said.

Hunt Oil’s $4 billion, 600 million cubic foot-a-day Peru liquefied natural gas export plant is slated to start operating in July, said Daniel Saba, president of state oil-contracting agency Perupetro. Companies including Spain’s Repsol, Calgary- based Talisman Energy Inc. and Ecopetrol SA’s Peruvian unit will drill at least 10 exploration wells this year, he said.

“Peru’s oil and gas industry has never been so active and with so many different companies,” Saba said yesterday in an interview in Lima. “Oil prices and recent finds are attracting investors.”

Peru aims to more than double oil and gas output to 400,000 barrels a day by 2015 from current levels of 150,000 barrels a day, Saba said. Energy investment planned for the next seven years totals $10 billion, including Paris-based Perenco SA’s 75,000 barrel-a-day crude project in the northern jungle.

Perenco plans to start drilling this year at the $2 billion project after oil prices jumped 75 percent in 2009, Saba said. Repsol also plans to develop northern oil fields which will require the extension of an 854-kilometer (531-mile) pipeline.

Crude oil for March delivery rose $1.07, or 1.4 percent, to $78.40 a barrel at 11:30 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract touched $78.71 a barrel, the highest since Jan. 20.

Camisea Investment

A Pluspetrol SA-led group aims to invest $2 billion in the Camisea gas fields by 2012 to supply petrochemical plants planned by CF Industries Holdings Inc., Sigdo Koppers SA and Braskem SA, Saba said.

The government plans to take bids in May for the exploration rights to 20 oil blocks in Peru’s Amazon jungle to attract companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp., Saba said. Winning bids will be awarded in October.

Transportadora de Gas del Peru, the Andean country’s largest pipeline operator, is investing $800 million to double its natural-gas shipping capacity to 900 million cubic feet a day, while Peru plans additional gas conduits to the southern highlands and north coast to supply mines, power plants and fishmeal plants.

“With an estimated 50 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in the southern jungle, there’s enough to supply these projects,” Saba said.

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