Page 11 - Euroil Week 50 2019

EurOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES EurOil
Hibiscus completes Crown takeover
UK
Crown will be developed as a tie-back to an FPSO at Marigold.
MALAYSIAN oil company Hibiscus has com- pleted its takeover of a UK North Sea discovery from two local players.
The company gained regulatory approval to acquire licence P2366 containing the Crown oilfield and has been appointed its operator. It gained a 95% stake in the licence from United Oil & Gas, along with a 5% share from Swift Exploration.
Crown was discovered 250km from Aber- deen in 1998 by ConocoPhillips, but at the time was considered too small to develop. United and Swift secured rights to the field last year, during the UK’s 30th offshore licensing round.
Hibiscus is already an established player in the North Sea, with interests in the Teal, Teal South, Guillemot and Cook fields that together comprise the Anasuria cluster. The depos- its are operated by Anasuria Operating Co. (AOC), a joint venture between Hibiscus and fellow Malaysian firm Ping Petroleum. It also
purchased a 50% stake in the Marigold and Sun- flower fields located near Crown last October from India’s Aban.
Hibiscus has so far only paid $900,000 for the Crown licence. But it will transfer a further $3mn once its plan to develop Crown, Marigold and Sunflower together is approved by regulators, which it expects by the end of 2020. A final $1mn will be paid through a royalty scheme after Crown enters production.
Hibiscus’ plan is to develop Crown, estimated to hold 4-8mn barrels of oil, as a single-well subsea tieback to a floating production storage and offloading (FSPO) unit placed at Marigold. Earlier it had considered using a fixed platform instead.
Back in Malaysia, Hibiscus has a 50% stake in the offshore North Sabah project, which com- prises several producing fields. It also operates licences off the coast of Australia. ™
OMV Petrom to take parent’s stake in Bulgarian block
BULGARIA
OMV Petrom operates the neighbouring Neptun Deep block in Romanian waters.
AUSTRO-ROMANIAN oil and gas group OMV Petrom will take over its parent company OMV’s stake in the 1-21 Han Asparuh (Khan Asparuh) off Bulgaria, it said on December 17.
The deal is subject to certain conditions and is expected by mid-2020, the company said. There is still no clarity on whether Total, the block’s operator, considers the site’s development feasible.
France’s Total, OMV and Spain’s Repsol struck oil in the area in 2016. The partners drilled a second well in 2017 and started work on a third in November 2018, although no results have been published.
OMV Petrom will pay to take over the Bul- garian concession from OMV “as the legislation does not allow the free transfer,” Economica.net explains. The amount has not been disclosed, but unofficial sources informed that, “at this moment, it is not very high”.
If the exploration proves successful and goes to the exploitation phase, OMV will receive “a premium”, an additional amount of money, in the future, sources said.
The Han Asparuh block is located in the western part of the Bulgarian Black Sea, cov- ering a deepwater area of about 14,200 square
kilometres. It is 40% is owned by Total, 30% by Repsol and the remaining 30% by OMV. Total is the field’s operator.
OMV Petrom also owns 50% of the Neptun Deep offshore gas project in Romania’s Black Sea section, adjacent to Han Asparuh. The move at Han Asparuh could therefore signal the com- pany is seeking to develop the projects jointly.
The other 50% in Neptun Deep is heldbyUS group ExxonMobil, which is currently looking for buyers for its stake.
Separately, Bulgaria is seeking investors for another block: the 4,032-square km Tervel block, covering waters 1,500-2,000 metres deep in the Black Sea. Tervel borders Khan Asparuh.™
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