Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy has made a bid worth US$ 645 million for Nautical Petroleum in order to increase the company’s presence in the North Sea. The purchase will also boost Cairn’s stakes in a number of North Sea fields due to produce oil within the next four years.
Simon Thomson, Cairn’s CEO said, “This acquisition is another step towards building a balanced portfolio of transformational exploration, appraisal and development assets, and complements our recent acquisition of Agor to help build a platform in North West Europe.
“Specifically, we will increase our equity position in the Catcher area, which contains several oil discoveries and follow-on prospectivity, and acquire a material stake in Kraken, another large, North Sea oil development project.
“In addition to these discoveries, this acquisition will add a number of North Sea exploration prospects to our existing 2012 and 2013 exploration programme in the UK and Norway.”
The purchase is valued at a premium of more than 51% of Nautical Petroleum’s closing share price and is the second made by Cairn in recent months, with Agora being purchased for US$ 450 million.
Cairn had recently finished an unsuccessful two-year campaign in Greenland, where the company was unable to discover any commercially viable hydrocarbon deposits.
Edited from various sources by David Bizley