UK North Sea oil and gas company EnQuest is to broaden its operations outside the UK, it announced today.
It said it was looking to build new business offshore Norway and Malaysia to “compliment and utilise” its skills built in the UK.
The firm has already applied for a licence to operate in the Norwegian North Sea and agreed to buy Malaysia-focused oil explorer Nio Petroleum (Sabah) – set up by former Petrofac staff – for up to £14.3million.
EnQuest was formed from the demerged UK North Sea assets of Petrofac and Lundin Petroleum in April 2010.
Its chief executive, Amjad Bseisu, said: “We have announced our first steps outside of the UK North Sea…preparatory moves to replicate our existing model by targeting previously underdeveloped assets in a small number of other maturing regions, complimenting our operations and utilising our deep skills in the UK North Sea.”
Last month, EnQuest said it was on the lookout for an Aberdeen city-centre site for a new north-east headquarters after quadrupling staffing in two years, to 1,500.
Giving an update on its UK operations, it said it hoped to submit a development plan for its Kraken heavy oil field in the first half of next year.
It added its Alma Galia development was on schedule for first oil in the fourth quarter of 2013.
New drilling is due to start on the Heather platform early next year once work reactivating a rig is completed and the firm is also looking to apply to carry out brownfield work from the Thistle platform shortly, making use of a new tax allowance.
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Nio Petroleum (Sabah), registered in Norwich, England, until last month, was set up by two former Petrofac managers as a development company focussed on Malaysia.
When it was set up in 2009, with backing from Barclays Natural Resource Investments, a division of the investment bank, it said its niche was opening up dormant discoveries and redeveloping mature, previously developed fields. It was working in partnership with Malaysian state firm Petronas and Sweden’s Lundin on two blocks of the coast of Sabah, Borneo. Richard Hall, one of the firm’s founding directors, who had also worked at Norwich-based Acteon, said in 2010 that they were also looking to Vietnam and had hoped in about three to four years to float the firm on a stock market. Last month Faysal Hamza, head of strategy and corporate development, at EnQuest, and Paul Waters, EnQuest’s company secretary, became directors of Nio, while founding directors Rory Edwards and Richard Hall left. Another separately listed another firm, Nio Petroleum, remains listed with Companies House and registered in Norwich. |
EnQuest said it expected full year production to be in the middle of previous estimates, at between 20,000 and 24,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The firm is currently drilling the North Sea Kildrummy exploration well, in which it has a 60% stake, and planning an appraisal well on the Cairngorm discovery in 2013.
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