Equinor and Faroe Petroleum PLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of DNO ASA of Oslo, have completed their no-cash exchange of producing and development interests offshore Norway (OGJ Online, Dec. 5, 2018).
Equinor and Faroe agreed to the deal last December while the latter was the subject of a share-purchase takeover attempt completed by DNO earlier this year.
Equinor interests increasing after the deal are Njord, to 27.5% from 20%, and Bauge and Hyme, to 42.5% from 35%.
Its interests in Vilje and the Ringhorne East Unit decline to zero, and its interests decline to 33% from 50% at Marulk and to 53% from 85% at Alve.
In exchange for its 7.5% interests in Njord, Bauge, and Hyme, Faroe receives interests of 32% in Alve, 17% in Marulk, 28.853% in Vilje, and 14.82% in the Ringhorne East Unit.
Njord is the redevelopment of a Norwegian Sea oil field shut in during 2016 in response to structural problems at the Njord A floating production platform, which was towed to shore for modification and upgrade. Restart is expected in the third quarter of 2020.
Equinor operates Njord with partners DEA, 50%, and Neptune, 22.5%.
Hyme oil field is a tie-back to Njord that was shut in with suspension of the Njord platform. It will restart with Njord. Interests other than that of Equinor, the operator, are DEA, 27.5%; Point Resources, 17.5%; and Neptune, 12.5%.
Bauge oil field is another Njord tie-back that had not started production when Njord was suspended. Interests are the same as those at Hyme.
Alve and Marulk are mature oil and gas fields tied backs to floating production, storage, and offloading vessel on Norne field in the Norwegian Sea.
Equinor operates Alve, in which the other partner is Ineos with a 15% interest. Eni, with a 20% interest, operates Marulk, in which the remaining interest is that of Ineos, 30%.
The Ringhorne East Unit produces oil in the central North Sea from four wells drilled from the Ringhorne drilling, wellhead, and accommodation platform tied to the FPSO on Balder field. Point Resources operates Ringhorne East with a 77.38% interest, in partnership with Faroe, the stake of which rises with the Equinor swap to 22.62%.
Aker BP operates Vilje oil field in the North Sea with a 46.904% interest. The field produces through three horizontal subsea wells tied back to the Alvheim FPSO. The remaining interest is PGNiG, 24.243%.
