OSLO, June 16 (Reuters) -
** Oil and gas firm DEA, controlled by Russian billionaireMikhail Fridman, eyes more deals in Norway, the firm's recentlyappointed Norway manager told Reuters in an interview
** "We see the withdrawal of the majors from the continentalshelf rather as a chance than a threat, so we see this opens upopportunities for us to grow inorganically," Hans-HermannAndreae said
** A sign of majors retreating came when Shell withdrew its application for acreage in Norway's 23rd licensinground in the Barents Sea earlier this year, while other majorssuch as ExxonMobil, Eni and Total didnever apply
** DEA, owned by Fridman's investment vehicle LetterOne,last year bought E.ON's oil and gas assets in Norwayfor $1.6 billion
** "We've shown what we can do with the E.ON acquisitionand... this is about the typical size of things that mighthappen," Andreae said
** "In any case such an acquisition is funded by theshareholders, so it's not out of our cash flow. That helps ofcourse a lot. And they (the shareholders) still have cash"
** He said the Norwegian business remains important for thefirm as Norway accounts for around 70,000 barrels of oilequivalents per day compared to the firm's total output ofaround 123,000-125,000 boepd
** A final investment decision for the Zidane project, anatural gas field in the Norwegian Sea, will be made by "latesummer or early fall", Andreae said
** "We are not delivering the final plan to the authoritiesas previously promised by Aug. 1 because Statoil wouldlike to retender more work and more contracts as they believe wecould achieve some more cost savings"
** Statoil is handling the modules that must be added to theHeidrun field to which the subsea templates on Zidane will belinked
** DEA will more than halve its Norwegian workforce afterthe E.ON transaction: "We had prior to the merger two companieswith approximately 90 staff members each... the new organisationwill have about 80 staff members (in total) and deal with asignificantly higher number of licences"
** He said the firm will focus on the projects "that arecreating the biggest value like Skarv, Snorre, Njord, Gjoea tosome extent, Zidane obviously and a few more"
** DEA Norway plans to spend more than $100 million onexploration this year out of its total capex of around $230million (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)
