Austrian oil and gas firm OMV said yesterday it had sold a stake in the North Sea Beryl field as part of plans to focus on the west of Shetland area.
OMV has offloaded a 5% stake in Beryl to an unnamed buyer for around £75million days after selling a 1.55% share of the Boa field, also in the North Sea, to Bridge Energy for £11.6million.
The firm has also taken on a 17.5% stake in the west of Shetland discoveries Tobermory and Bunnehaven from Statoil, in exchange for a 30% stake in Mariner East.
OMV already has stakes in other fields off Shetland, including a 4.84% share of BP’s Quad 204 project.
It drilled the Tornado exploration well in 2009, and is also involved in the Cambo, Jackdaw and Rosebank discoveries.
It was also a partner in Chevron’s dry Aberlour well, which was drilled recently.
Jaap Huijskes, OMV executive board member responsible for exploration and production, said: “These are the first steps in line with our strategy to concentrate our resources in the UK on the important West of Shetlands area.
“OMV has production in this area from the Schiehallion field, where the re-development project is under way and targeting first production in 2016.
“In addition we are continuing to move our important discoveries – Rosebank, Cambo and Tornado – towards development decisions.”
The OMV Tornado prospect was drilled in 2009. Pre-drill estimates were for Tornado to have 90-100million barrels of oil equivalent recoverable.