RE: Dealmakers look ahead to ‘big year’ for M&A in UK North Sea...6 Dec 2019 13:08
This article is more than 3 months old
ExxonMobil plans £1.6bn sale of North Sea oil and gas stakes
This article is more than 3 months old
US oil firm in talks for portfolio owned with Royal Dutch Shell that includes Brent field
Jillian Ambrose
Tue 13 Aug 2019 17.34 BSTLast modified on Tue 13 Aug 2019 20.25 BST
Shares
31
ExxonMobil is planning a retreat from the North Sea with a $2bn (£1.6bn) sale of its oil and gas fields after almost 50 years in the UK’s oil basin.
The world’s largest listed company is in talks with a number of North Sea oil firms to sell the stakes it owns in about 40 oil and gas fields alongside Royal Dutch Shell.
Advertisement
The portfolio could fetch the US oil major about $2bn, according to market sources, after a string of similar deals in the North Sea in recent months.
ExxonMobil is responsible for producing about 5% of the UK’s oil and gas through the joint venture which it formed with the Anglo-Dutch firm in the early days of North Sea oil exploration in the 1960s.
Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you
Read more
The joint portfolio – which is entirely operated by Shell – includes the prolific Brent field which first began pumping oil in the North Sea’s 1970s heyday, and lent its name to the global benchmark price for crude oil.
A spokesman for ExxonMobil declined to comment on the sale talks.
The North Sea exit would make Exxon the third major US oil company to turn its back on the UK oil basin after Chevron and ConocoPhillips beat a retreat in multibillion-dollar deals earlier this summer.
The US companies are understood to be backing out of the North Sea in favour of North American shale projects which produce a much quicker return on investment.
The North Sea fields have been snapped up by smaller North Sea minnows with deep-pocketed owners in a flurry of deals this year.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
