Wintershall Sells Norway Oil Assets to Sequa Unit for $602 Million

By Kjetil Malkenes Hovland

German oil and gas company Wintershall, a unit of BASF, said Thursday it has agreed to sell stakes in oil and gas fields off Norway for $602 million to Tellus Petroleum AS to partly reduce Wintershall's future spending obligations.

"We are selling shares in non-operated fields at a competitive price and reducing our investment obligations," said Martin Bachmann, Wintershall board member and responsible for exploration and production in Europe.

Tellus will acquire Wintershall's 20% stake in the Knarr field, its 4.5% stake in the Veslefrikk field, its 6.46% stake in Ivar Aasen and its 10% stake in the Yme field, as well as stakes in several exploration licenses and oil and gas pipelines.

Wintershall said Tellus Petroleum, a subsidiary of Dutch oil and gas company Sequa Petroleum NV, will also buy a 15% stake in the Maria field, reducing Wintershall's ownership to 35%.

Oslo-based Tellus Petroleum was established in 2012 to acquire interests in small and medium-sized producing fields and discoveries off Norway.

Of the total price, $40 million is conditional on receiving government approval for the Maria development. Tellus will pay an additional $100 million, depending on the oil price development between 2016 and 2019, Wintershall said.

Wintershall has boosted its production in Norway to 60,000 barrels a day after several transactions with the country's dominant oil company Statoil, and holds more than 50 licenses in the country.

The company said the deal didn't change its global production target of 190 million barrels of oil equivalent, or 520,000 barrels a day, by 2018.

Sequa Petroleum said the reserves of the acquired fields were estimated at 50 million barrels, based on numbers from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate. The production peak of the acquired fields is expected to be 15,000 barrels a day, predominantly oil, it said.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Write to Kjetil Malkenes Hovland at [e-mail]

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