Aker BP is actively looking to purchase more assets or companies operating in Norway’s lucrative oil and gas sector, according to Oyvind Eriksen, chief executive of the firm’s parent company.
Aker BP, controlled by Norwegian billionaire Kjell Inge Rokke, is about to become the country’s second-biggest oil and gas producer — after Equinor ASA — after it agreed to buy Lundin Energy AB’s fossil assets late last year.
“We expect that there will still be transaction opportunities,” off Norway’s coast Eriksen said in an interview. “We will follow this closely.”
Norway, Western Europe’s biggest oil- and gas-producing country, has benefited from a surge in commodity prices amid rising demand and supply-chain disruptions during the pandemic. Brent crude futures, which were edging toward $100 a barrel earlier this month, are trading about 40% higher than they were a year ago.
Eriksen said Aker will be prudent in its search for assets.
“The decisive factor will be the quality of the companies or fields that come up for sale,” he added, noting that each barrel must be produced at low cost, with low emissions. “There will be transactions that we’ll have to let go to others for that reason.”
Eriksen expects the Lundin transaction to be completed within the second quarter of this year. The combined company will produce the equivalent of about 400,000 barrels of oil a day.
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