Equinor has entered into an agreement to acquire all of Spirit Energy’s production licenses in the Statfjord area which spreads across the Norwegian and UK continental shelves and are developed by three integrated production platforms (Statfjord A, B, C). All licenses are operated by Equinor.
Equinor will pay $50 million, plus a contingent payment linked to commodity prices for the period between October 2021 to December 2022.
The transaction has a commercial effective date from 1 January 2021, which is expected to result in a net payment to Equinor at closing. Spirit Energy’s daily production from the Statfjord area in the third quarter of 2021 was around 21,000 BOED.
The transaction is part of a larger deal including Spirit Energy’s shareholders, Centrica Plc and Stadtwerke München, who are exiting their portfolio in Norway and selling their assets to Sval Energi. The sale to Sval Energi includes all assets with the exclusion of Statfjord.
Statfjord marked its 40th year of production in 2019. One of the earliest oil fields on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, it has produced 5.1 billion BOE. Equinor has recently launched a plan to extend the life of the field toward 2040.
The closing of the transaction is subject to certain conditions, including customary government approval, and is expected to be completed by the first half of 2022.