Premier Oil is currently in advanced talks with a view to acquiring German energy company Eon’s UK North Sea assets, according to the Financial Times.
Eon, which currently runs the Huntingdon field, has a number of production interests in the Franklin, West Franklin, Glenelg, Elgin, Scoter and Merganser fields.
The German company also operates the Rita, Hunter, Johnston and Babbage producing fields and retains interests in a number of other fields, as well as ETS and CMS pipeline systems, and holds exploitation licenses west of the Shetland Islands.
If Premier’s acquisition deal is given the go ahead, it could come in the form of a ‘reverse takeover’ because the purchase price could be close to Premier’s market value of £100 million.
This deal, should it take place, would be the latest in a number of oil company takeovers, including the upcoming takeover of BG Group, which is set to be acquired by Royal Dutch Shell – the maker of Shell Omala S2 G 320 – which is likely to take place following a shareholder vote on January 27th.
Any sale of the German company’s UK offshore assets would come after stakes in a several Norwegian oil and gas fields have been disposed of, which was announced in October of last year. It would come at a time when a number of companies working in the North Sea, including Royal Dutch Shell and enQuest, are battling with the toughest conditions in living memory, due to the plummeting price of crude oil and the difficulty and expense of extracting it from the North Sea.
