Page 10 - Euroil Week 48 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Cairn offloads Norwegian business
NORWAY
Cairn wants to focus on the UK, while Solveig is building up its E&P business.
LONDON-LISTED oilfield operator Cairn Energy has struck a deal to sell its Norwegian subsidiary Capricorn Norge to Norwegian pipe- line rm Solveig Gas for $100mn.
Cairn aims to use proceeds from the deal to fund its ongoing oil business in UK waters, it reported on November 27.
“ is is a further attractive transaction for Cairn shareholders in line with our consistent strategy to realise value and redeploy capital within our portfolio,” Cairn CEO Simon om- son said. “We continue to have a material busi- ness in the UK North Sea, where production performance of the Kraken and Catcher assets remains strong.”
Solveig, controlled by private equity fund HitecVision, wants to establish itself as a major E&P player. e deal with Cairn follows on from its purchase of a 10% stake in Norway’s Duva gas eld, announced last month.
“ is transaction is in line with the strategy of Solveig becoming an integrated, infrastruc- ture-based E&P operating company, combining
its gas pipeline assets with exploration, ongoing and future development and resulting produc- tion,” Solveig chairman Gunnar Olsen said.
e deal will net Solveig 6,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) from Capri- corn’s 10% share in the Wintershall Dea-op- erated Nova eld, once it comes on stream in 2021. It will also provide the rm with its rst operated licences. Solveig’s other assets include a 15.56% interest in the Norwegian Gassled pipeline and terminals system as well as a 13.3% share of the Polarled pipeline in the Norwegian Sea.
Cairn and Solveig said the sale would be closed pending standards approvals, anticipated in early 2020, and would be backdated to January 1 of that year.
Cairn has managed to return to profit, recording a pre-tax pro t of $43.3mn in the rst half versus $1bn in losses a year earlier, when it booked heavy impairments. It has also su ered disappointing exploration results this year, how- ever. ™
Hurricane finds more oil off Shetlands
UK
Warwick West is the third and nal well in Hurricane’s 2019 drilling campaign.
UK player Hurricane Energy has chalked up another discovery at the Greater Warwick Area (GWA) west of the Shetland Islands, but has cau- tioned that further analysis is needed to size up its potential.
Warwick West, the third and final well in Hurricane’s 2019 drilling campaign at GWA, was spudded in late September and had reached a depth of 1,879 metres, the company said on December 2. It intersected a 931-metre hori- zontal section of a fractured basement reservoir, achieving a stable ow rate of 1,300 barrels per day (bpd) of oil during 85 hours of tests. Samples suggest the reservoir contains light oil with an API gravity of 43 degrees.
Further technical analysis is needed to deter- mine whether GWA is a single accumulation, Hurricane said.
“We are pleased to have made another discov- ery with the Warwick West well. e ow test results con rm the presence of light, mobile oil,” Hurricane CEO Robert Trice said. “ e impact that this well will have on how the company views the GWA accumulation and its associ- ated volumetrics will require further technical analysis.”
Hurricane has a 50% operating interest in
GWA, while its venture partner Spirit Energy also has a 50% stake. e rst well in the compa- ny’s drilling programme, Warwick Deep, came up dry, but its second Lincoln Crestal well found commercial volumes of oil. e discovery will be tied back to the Aoka Mizu oating, production, storage and o oading (FPSO) unit next year.
e Transocean Leader semi-submersible rig used to drill Warwick West will demobilise a er plugging and abandoning the well.
Hurricane also provided an update on its 100%-owned Lancaster oil eld, also o the coast of the Shetlands, which entered production in June. Last month a sixth cargo of crude was dis- patched from the eld’s early production system, bringing total sales of oil from the eld to 2.5mn barrels. Lancaster’s output during the rest of the year is expected to remain in line with projec- tions, Hurricane said, averaging 11,000 bpd.
“Further progress is also being made in our understanding of the Lancaster reservoir,” Trice added. “Uninterrupted vessel uptime combined with good well productivity have allowed us to carry out additional data gathering whilst remaining in line with guidance for Q4 2019.”
A further update on the project will be pro- vided in December, he said.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 05•December•2019