UK oil and gas company Harbour Energy (LON: HBR) expects to complete the acquisition of German firm Wintershall Dea’s asset portfolio in early September.
Harbour had previously said it expected to complete the deal by the fourth quarter of 2024.
The company said the move followed “considerable progress made on satisfying the conditions to completion, including recent receipt of Mexico regulatory consents”.
Harbour and Wintershall DEA struck the $11.2b deal in late December 2023. Harbour will take over Wintershall’s portfolio of upstream oil and gas assets in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Argentina, Mexico, Egypt and Libya, adding 1.1b barrels of oil equivalent in reserves.
The move will also more than double its production, which totalled 208,000 boepd in 2022, to more than 500,000 boepd.
The deal is subject to a range of approvals from numerous governments and national regulators. This includes Mexico and the EU needing to clear the deal on anti-trust grounds.
Previously, the group said it had made “significant progress” on finalising the necessary approvals to complete the acquisition after it received clearance for the takeover from Germany’s federal ministry of economics and climate action and Norway’s energy ministry.
The deal offers Harbour Energy the chance to expand its operations outside the UK after the windfall tax “wiped out” profits in 2022 and saw the firm make layoffs.
The company also said that the tax regime took over $500m from its 2023 earnings, leaving it with profits of $32m.
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