Verus Petroleum has significantly beefed up its UK North Sea portfolio after deals worth tens of millions of pounds with Statoil and Premier Oil.
A sale and purchase agreement (SPA) with Statoil will see Verus, which is backed by upstream oil and gas private-equity investor HitecVision, take a 17% non-operated stake in the Alba oilfield about 130 miles north-east of Aberdeen.
And an SPA with Premier worth £45.9 million net of exploration commitments will give Verus a 47% interest in the Babbage gas field in the southern UK North Sea.
Aberdeen-based Verus is also acquiring a 50% share in the Cobra discovery, near Babbage, from Premier after agreeing to pay £5.5m if the asset is developed. Additional payments will become due as a result of any new third-party business across the Babbage infrastructure.
Verus said the Alba and Babbage stakes would give it extra production of 5,100 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) a day, allowing the firm to deliver 8,700
boe daily, while taking its total reserves to nearly 24m boe.
Both cash and debt funded deals are subject to regulatory and other approvals but expected to complete later this year, with the Statoil transaction likely to be the first to cross the line.
Verus chief executive Alan Curran said they were consistent with the company’s strategy of “expanding our production base and cash flow”.
The firm was forged out of the 2010 merger of Norwegian Bridge Energy and Silverstone Energy.
Its production growth target is 20,000 boe a day, from a a reserve of 35-40m boe.
