UPDATE 1-Enquest sees tax clarity stoking North Sea deals

LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - Britain's EnQuest,which specialises in extending the life of old oil fields,expects to snap up more assets in its core North Sea regionfollowing the government's move to clarify tax relief on closingpipelines and platforms.

The government said earlier in March it would sign contractswith companies to provide certainty on tax relief linked to thecost of shutting down old North Sea operations.

Analysts think that should make dealmaking easier for smallcompanies like EnQuest, for whom smaller reserves of oil and gasare more meaningful than for major international companies likeBP, as they will now need less financial security tocover the ultimate costs of abandoning sites.

"We see we'll be in prime position to take advantage of thatincrease in asset sales over the coming years," Chief FinancialOfficer Jonathan Swinney told reporters on Wednesday.

"These are going to be late life fields where we can showour expertise."

EnQuest specialises in extending the life of fields bydrilling additional wells and using techniques to boost reservesand production at fields which have become too small to be ofinterest to oil majors.

With declining fields and modest recent discoveries, theBritish North Sea is increasingly the domain of small firms.

EnQuest, which last year announced plans to work outsideBritain for the first time by buying a Malaysian company andapplying for a licence to work in the Norwegian North Sea, saidit continued to consider other overseas opportunities.

"South East Asia and Norway are the two focus areas. We'realso looking selectively in North Africa," Chief Executive AmjadBseisu said.

The firm, which invested $803 million in its projects in theNorth Sea in 2012, said its Alma/Galia development there was ontrack to start pumping oil in the fourth quarter of this year.It expects to submit a plan to develop the Kraken field, also inthe North Sea, in the second quarter of this year.

Annual pretax profit rose 3.8 percent to $405.1 million, onproduction which dipped slightly, and was offset by a higherrealised average oil price and a reduction in costs.

Shares in EnQuest, which was spun-out of oil engineeringcompany Petrofac in 2010, were 0.2 percent lower inearly trading.