Lotos acquires North Sea stakes

Polish conglomerate Grupa Lotos is set to acquire stakes in five Statoil-operated North Sea fields, the company announced Monday.

Under the $185-million farm-in deal that Lotos made with super-major ExxonMobil, the company will obtain a 15-percent stake in each of the Sleipner East, Sleipner West, Loke and Gungne fields, as well as a 28-percent interest in the gas and condensate Alfa Sentral discovery.

The agreement, which is still subject to Norwegian regulatory approval, includes a value-adjustment mechanism that will come into force in 2016 and depend on oil price increases until 2020.

Lotos will receive about 20.8 million barrels of oil equivalent in 2P reserves and 17.6 million in contingent resources. Gas accounts for around 70 percent of the 16,000-barrel per-day production estimate from the Sleipner fields, while the remainder is condensate.

“The acquisition of the Sleipner equity interests confirms our ambition to gain a strong foothold on the Norwegian continental shelf. The investment supports the Lotos group’s long-term strategic production goal,” Lotos Exploration & Production Norge managing director, Wojciech Kowalczyk, said in a company statement.

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