Lotos eyeing up Norwegian assets

Lotos oil rig. Photo courtesy: lotos.pl

The Lotos group, based in the Baltic city of Gdansk, is eyeing up assets similar in size to the Heimdal project, run by Norwegian state-owned oil and gas company, Statoil.

Speaking to journalists, Tuesday, Lotos deputy CEO Zbigniew Paszkowicz said that “we are in talks over the next production acquisitions in Norway,” adding that “we are talking about one large field with production capacity similar to the Heimdal project, or a number of smaller fields.”

The investment – if it goes ahead – will almost cost an estimated 176 million dollars, and “the transaction may go through this year or next,” Paszkowicz said.

The move comes as Lotos Norge, a subsidiary of Lotos Petrobaltic, announced in November 2013 that it had acquired 12 concessions for gas exploration on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Lotos’ extraction in Norway amounts to around 240 toe (tonnes of oil equivalent) annually, of which 70 percent is natural gas, with the remaining 30 percent being natural-gas condensate.

The transaction is valued at 175.8 million US dollars, 80 million (45 percent) of which will be financed thanks to 2013 cash flows and will make use of the Yme project tax shield. (jb)

Source: PAP