BP Sells Sean Gas

Transaction Type
Sellers
Buyers
Announce Date
Post Date
Estimated Price
288MM
Description

Purchase of a 50% WI in Sean Gas field in North Sea.

BP Plc. plans to sell its interest in the Sean Gas Field to the public utility firm SSE Plc. for $288 million.

Under the terms of the agreement between the two companies, SSE will acquire a 50% working interest in the Sean Gas field in the southern North Sea.

SSE, a public utility based in Perth, United Kingdom, announced the deal gives it an additional net proven and probable reserves of about 1.7 billion therms over the life of the field, with the possibility of additional reserves through infill drilling. The field is close to other SSE upstream assets.

The transaction has an effective date of Jan. 1, 2012 and is expected to close in the first half of 2013.

David Franklin, SSE’s managing director energy portfolio management, said: “We have made clear that SSE is proactively seeking new opportunities to increase our presence in the upstream gas sector where assets can be acquired for a fair price, and that is exactly what this deal represents.”

BP said it sold the asset as part of a broader program to sell non-core assets. "The divestment of BP's interest in the non-core, non-operated Sean field is consistent with our strategy of focusing on high value assets with long term growth potential," BP North Sea's regional president Trevor Garlick said in the statement.

Shell is the operator of the Sean gas field in the North Sea; BP's share of production from the field is 8,000 BOE per day.

BP also plans to sell the Wytch Farm oil field in Dorset and its non-operated stakes in the Draugen, Alba and Britannia fields. In late November, BP announced it would sell its Harding, Maclure, Braes and Devenick assets to TAQA, the Dubai National Energy Co. The total value of those assets sold, including the most recent sale is about $3.1 billion, BP announced.

BP's annual production from the North Sea - in the UK and Norway - averages around 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day. The company has over three billion barrels of estimated of proven and contingent resource available in the region.