A multimillion-dollar deal has been struck to end a dispute over a North Sea oil and gas discovery.
United Oil and Gas has said it has reached a settlement agreement with Anasuria Hibiscus over the Crown licence.
Hibiscus, which acquired Crown from United in 2019, said last year that it would not commit to further investment after field development activities at its nearby Marigold field were stalled.
The Crown licence was then terminated by Hibiscus, causing a legal wrangle, as United said $2.85m was still payable under their deal once certain milestones were hit, or the North Sea discovery would return to them.
Hibiscus has now agreed to pay United $2.5m over three instalments up until December 29, 2022, bringing the matter to a close.
Crown has estimated resources of eight million barrels of oil and six billion cubic feet of gas.
Hibiscus previously said it intended to develop Crown as part of its Marigold Cluster – recently revealed to be developed jointly with Ithaca Energy’s Yeoman field via the Piper Bravo platform owned by Repsol Sinopec.
Changing fortunes
United Oil and Gas, focused on areas including Egypt, Italy and Jamaica, has been seeking to sell off its offshore licences in the UK for some time and hit bumps in the road.
Earlier this month, the firm had to call off a £3.2m deal to sell off a brace of licences to Quattro Energy, after the latter failed to meet extended deadlines for fundraising.
The deal was for the P2480 and P2519 licences – the latter including the Maria discovery, estimated to hold around six million recoverable barrels of oil equivalent.
It has been expected to close in September, though delays pushed it to the fourth quarter of 2021 and then into February 2022.
On March 3, United said a decision had been made to terminate the sale.
Quattro was launched last July by North Sea stalwart Neill Carson, who co-founded Ithaca Energy and helped establish i3 Energy.
Speaking to Energy Voice, Mr Carson said the outcome was “unfortunate”. He added that Quattro’s plans required considerable engineering and commercial detail to secure funding, and that the necessary work was not able to be completed in time for the seller’s backstop date.
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