Newcomers Step Up As Oil Majors Ditch Old North Sea Fields

"The purchasing logic for some of these guys might be different - they are playing a different game and don't simply need to deliver profitable barrels for the next quarter," said Philip Whittaker at the Boston Consulting Group.

"For someone like Taqa it's about showing they can build an international business, plus it allows them to acquire a well-trained workforce quickly. For Chinese companies like Sinopec or CNOOC it's about securing upstream supply."

Unforgiving Environment

NOCs are also likely to be more comfortable with service companies doing more for them due to their relative inexperience in the unforgiving environment of the North Sea.

This would be a break with the past, as the integrated oil companies (IOCs) have tended to be wary of surrendering day-to-day control to service companies due to competitive interests.

"The rise in prominence of NOCs will challenge the conventional approaches of the IOCs," said Dr Marcus Richards, chief executive of Dana Petroleum, which was bought by KNOC in 2010. "And the growth and increasing breadth of the service sector is creating a range of potential new operating models."

Petrofac's Thain added that NOCs and independent producers investing in mature fields weren't always interested in setting up huge organisations in the UK to operate their facilities.

"They also have a good handle on how these facilities are being operated now, and they are not necessarily being operated as efficiently as they could be," he said. "A number of their investments are in mature assets, and it's the mature assets that have the production challenges."


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