Harbour Energy Plc, one of the largest independent oil and gas firms in the UK, agreed to pay $170 million for all the subsidiaries of Waldorf Energy Partners Ltd. and Waldorf Production Ltd.
The deal will add 20,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to production and increases the company’s share of the Catcher field in the North Sea to 90% from 50%, Harbour Energy said in a statement on Friday. The subsidiaries are currently in administration and the acquisition will release an estimated $350 million of cash posted to secure Waldorf’s decommissioning liabilities, it added.
Harbour Energy shares gained as much as 7.6% in London trading, the most since August.
Many oil and gas companies, already suffering declines in production at mature fields in the British North Sea, have been reassessing their activities after a UK windfall tax was extended and increased several times. Harbour Energy, which completed the acquisition of Wintershall Dea’s non-Russian assets last year, operates in nine countries, including in Norway, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and North Africa.
“This transaction is an important step for Harbour in the UK North Sea, building on the action we’ve already taken to sustain our position in the basin given the ongoing fiscal and regulatory challenges,” said Scott Barr, managing director of Harbour Energy’s UK business unit.
Harbour Energy accounts for about 15% of UK’s total oil and gas production, pumping 156,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily in the first nine months of the year.
The sale could be a step toward ending Waldorf’s struggle to get a debt restructuring over the line. In August, the UK’s High Court of Justice in August rejected a plan proposed by the company on the basis that it had “not discharged the burden on it of showing the plan is fair and that it is appropriate, just and equitable.”
But as part of Friday’s sale announcement, Waldorf said it had entered into an agreement with some of its bondholders to support the transaction and highlighted that it provides a “pro-rata sharing of the restructuring benefits between all affected creditors.”
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