Statoil To Sell $2.65 Bln Worth Oil Field Stakes To Australia's OMV

(RTTNews) - Norwegian energy company Statoil ASA (STO) Monday announced that it has signed an agreement to divest minority interests in several fields offshore Norway to Austrian oil and gas company OMV AG (OMVKY.PK) for $2.65 billion in cash.

In addition to the cash consideration, the transaction with OMV includes a contingent payment and involves a partnership between the two companies. OMV said the customary adjustments for the year 2013 are expected to increase the purchase price by approximately $500 million.

Statoil expects to recognize a gain from the sale of between $1.3 billion to $1.5 billion. This will be adjusted for activity between the effective date January 1, 2013 and the closing date, expected around year end 2013, pending government and partner approvals.

In the transaction, Statoil will reduce its stakes in the Gullfaks to 51 percent from 70 percent and Gudrun field to 51 percent from 75 percent. Statoil retains its operatorships on both Gullfaks and Gudrun fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Meanwhile, the company will exit the non-core, non-operated Schiehallion and Rosebank fields, West of Shetlands. OMV will acquire 30% in the oil field development Rosebank and around 5.88% in the oil field redevelopment project Schiehallion in the UK.

In addition, contingent payment of $6 per boe for reserves to be developed has been agreed for the recent Shetland/Lista discovery in the Gullfaks license, depending on the approval of the respective development plan.

Statoil's production from the divested assets in the first half of 2013 was about 26 thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day from Gullfaks. The company estimates its production impact from the transaction to be around 40 thousand barrels of equity oil equivalent per day in 2014 and 60 boe per day in 2016.

The company said the deal will enable it to redeploy around $7 billion of capital expenditure, around $5.5 billion of which is pre-2020, excluding potential investments in the recent Shetland/Lista discovery at Gullfaks.

Further, Statoil and OMV entered into a partnership including potential co-operation on exploration opportunities across Norway, the UK and the Faroese Islands as well as the development of Enhanced Oil Recovery or EOR technologies.

The company added that it remains committed to growing its business on the UKCS and is the operator of large field developments including the Mariner project and exploration licenses. Statoil further focuses its UK portfolio by divesting non-core, non-operated developments in the West of Shetlands.

Since 2010, Statoil has realized total proceeds of around $15 billion through divestments, enabling the company to redeploy resources to core, high return upstream projects.

In the latest deal, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Lambert Energy Advisory Limited were financial advisors to Statoil.

In Oslo, Statoil shares are currently trading at 129.40 kroner, up 0.80 krone or 0.62 percent.

OMV shares are currently at 34.25 euros, down 0.81 euros or 2.31 percent.