Aker BP Buys King Lear Find

Aker BP Buys King Lear Find
Aker BP enters into an agreement with Equinor to acquire its 77.8% interest in the King Lear gas/condensate discovery.

Aker BP has entered into an agreement with Equinor to acquire its 77.8 percent interest in the King Lear gas/condensate discovery, located in the Norwegian North Sea, for a cash consideration of $250 million.

Closing of the transaction is subject to customary conditions, including partner and authority approval, Equinor said in a statement published on its website.

The King Lear discovery was made in 1989 in blocks PL 146 and PL 333 in the Ekofisk area of the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). Net recoverable resources are 77 million barrels of oil equivalent, Equinor states on its website.

“The King Lear discovery is one of the largest undeveloped discoveries on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, and represents an excellent opportunity for Aker BP,” Karl Johnny Hersvik, CEO of Aker BP, said in a company statement.

“Our goal is to develop King Lear as a satellite to Ula. This will improve the capacity utilization at the Ula facilities and provide significant additional volumes of injection gas to support increased oil recovery from the Ula field,” he added.

Jez Averty, Equinor’s senior vice president for operations in the southern North Sea, said, “this transaction is a further example of our strategy of capturing value from active portfolio management through the oil price cycles.”

“We are divesting a low-priority asset in our NCS portfolio to a buyer who sees higher value. By doing so we unlock capital for investment in projects that offer higher returns for Equinor,” he added.

Back in July, Aker BP announced that it had entered into an agreement with Total E&P Norge to acquire its interests in a portfolio of 11 licenses on the NCS for a cash consideration of $205 million.

“With this transaction, we get access to new tie-back opportunities in the Alvheim and Skarv areas, we strengthen our resource base in the NOAKA area, and we increase our interest in exploration acreage near the Ula field. These new resources will further strengthen our long-term production profile and contribute positively to future earnings,” Hersvik said in a company statement released at the time.



WHAT DO YOU THINK?


Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.


Most Popular Articles