United KingdomFactbox: UK North Sea oil and gas fields bought by private groups
Reuters
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Tailwind, a private oil producer backed by commodity trader Mercuria, has agreed to buy BP s stake in the Shearwater oilfield in the British North Sea, it said on Monday. read more
The British North Sea has been undergoing a changing of the guard with oil majors selling oil and gas fields to private equity-owned groups.
The new owners say they can squeeze out more and cheaper barrels from North Sea fields than big companies, making faster decisions and specialising in North Sea extraction.
Here is a list of recent deals:
Serica suffers setbacks at UK Columbus field
Serica Energy expects a £3mn ($4.3mn) cost overrun at the Columbus gas project in the North Sea after encountering difficulties at its development well, the London-listed company said on May 25.
The well was spudded in mid-March and drilled to a depth of 17,600 ft as planned, Serica said. In line with pre-drill expectations, a 5,900-ft horizontal section was drilled through the reservoir formations of the upper Forties and encountered a sequence of sands and shales. The well requires sand screens to be installed to prevent fine particles being produced; difficulties were encountered while running the screens and it was ultimately not possible to install them, Serica said. As a result, the reservoir section of the well will be side-tracked and re-drilled, using data collected during initial drilling to optimise its trajectory and avoid the difficulties encountered running the screens in the original well.
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Cairn Energy sale of stake in North Sea fields to Waldorf on track to complete in H2
11 May 2021 | 07:44am
StockMarketWire.com - Oil company Cairn Energy said it continued to expect to complete the sale of its UK Catcher and Kraken fields to Waldorf Production in the second half of the year. Divestment of our interests in our Catcher and Kraken producing assets in the UK North Sea comes at the right point in the cycle and allows us to retain exposure to oil price and reservoir performance upside, whilst further supporting our ability to pursue our strategic goals, it added.