Page 14 - EurOil Week 46 2021

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil

BP, Aker reduce stake in

Norwegian JV

NORWAY BP and Norwegian group Aker announced on these divestment proceeds will be expected to
November 11 that they had sold a 5% stake in further strengthen [BP’s] balance sheet and
BP has launched an Norwegian oil producer Aker BP, reducing their support our ongoing buyback commitment,”
ambitious transition overall ownership to 65%. Looney said in a statement commenting on
plan. The partners raised NOK5.58bn ($655mn) the sale.
from the divestment, which represented a 10.2% “Aker BP is, and will remain, a core holding
discount to Aker BP’s share price at the end of in Aker’s portfolio,” Aker CEO Oeyvind Eriksen
trading on November 10. Aker and BP said they added. “The aim of the offering is, however, to
would not sell any more shares in the joint ven- balance Aker’s portfolio by freeing up liquid-
ture in the next six months. ity, diversifying and continuing growing the
Aker BP was formed in 2016 through the portfolio.”
merger of Aker and BP’s Norwegian oil and Aker sold 10.29mn shares in Aker BP, leav-
gas operations, and the company’s valuation ing it with a 37.14% ownership position, while
has since risen fourfold. While other European BP divested 7.72mn shares and now controls
oil producers have moved into renewables and 27.85%.
low-carbon technologies, Aker BP has said it Managing the transaction was JP Morgan,
wants to remain a pure play oil producer – a Pareto Securities, DNB Markets, Goldman Sachs
strategy aimed at maximising profit but one that and Morgan Stanley.
may not align with BP’s accelerated energy tran- The sale coincides with a disappointing
sition plans. exploration well result for Aker BP in the Nor-
Under CEO Bernard Looney, BP envisages wegian North Sea. The company’s wildcat well
reducing its oil and gas production by 40% over at production licence 1041, drilled 17 km south-
the next decade, while also targeting a twen- west of the Boyla field, found only a non-com-
ty-fold increase in investments in renewables. mercial volume of oil, the Norwegian Petroleum
“Consistent with our long-standing Directorate (NPD) reported. The well has been
track-record of active portfolio management, permanently plugged and abandoned. ™

Sverdrup back online after outage

NORWAY NORWAY’S largest oilfield Johan Sverdrup was via a 200-km power cable from a loading termi-
closed for a few hours on November 11 as a result nal at Mongstad, and cannot normally produce
The field flows at a rate of a power supply failure, its operator Equinor without this supply. The glitch is likely to come
of over 500,00 barrels reported. under scrutiny, because Sverdrup’s facilities are
per day. The midday power outage resulted in the set to serve as a conduit for power supplies to
field’s closure for a few hours. Production was a raft of other North Sea fields once its second
resumed at 18:00 GMT and had reached full development phase comes online in the fourth
capacity again at 11:00 GMT on November 12. quarter of 2022. ™
Sverdrup, which was brought on stream
in late 2019, now produces oil at a rate of over
500,000 barrels per day. Its full capacity is
535,000 bpd. Equinor operates the field with a
42.6% stake, while Lundin has 20%, Petoro has
17.4%, Aker BP 11.6% and TotalEnergies 8.4%.
The precise reason for the power glitch is
unclear. But Sverdrup is powered by onshore
hydroelectric power generation, rather than the
on-site gas and diesel generators that are used at
other Norwegian offshore fields. This helps min-
imise emissions from its operation.
The Sverdrup platform is connected to shore

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 46 18•November•2021