KUFPEC doubles its interest in ‘Gina Krog’ field, Norway

Kuwait prioritises energy

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 30: Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company k.s.c. (“KUFPEC”) announced today that its wholly-owned subsidiary KUFPEC Norway AS has reached agreement to acquire a 15% interest in the Gina Krog field from Total E&P Norge AS, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TOTAL S.A., for a consideration of $317 million with effective date of Jan 1, 2017.

At closing, KUFPEC will add approximately 34 MMboe in net reserves and approximately 9,000 boe/d of production from Gina Krog, which came on-stream in June 2017 and is operated by Statoil. The addition of the new production will take KUFPEC’s production in Norway close to 25,000 boe/d.

KUFPEC Chief Executive Officer Shaikh Nawaf Saud Nasir Al-Sabah stated: “KUFPEC continues to execute its strategy to grow in profitable projects in Norway, and this transaction builds on our 2016 acquisition of Greater Sleipner Area assets from TOTAL, which included a 15% interest in Gina Krog.”

The transaction is subject to all requisite Norwegian government approvals. Upon completion, KUFPEC’s working interest in the Gina Krog field will be 30%.

KUFPEC was established by its parent company Kuwait Petroleum Corporation in 1981 to engage in exploration, development and production of crude oil and natural gas outside the State of Kuwait. It is currently active in 14 countries with 54 assets in the international upstream sector. KUFPEC is headquartered in Kuwait City, Kuwait and has additional offices in Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Netherlands, Norway and Pakistan.

Scotiabank acted as exclusive financial advisor to KUFPEC in this transaction and Advokatfirmaet Selmer acted as Norway legal advisor.

The recent progress on two of Kuwaits priority hydrocarbons projects stands in contrast to the status of schemes in the power sector

The news that Kuwait’s Central Tenders Committee has given the green light to issue the tender to build phase 1 of the Jurassic gas facility is a clear indication of the government’s commitment to progressing with hydrocarbons projects, despite the lower oil-price environment. The engineering, procurement and construction contract is estimated to be worth $3.5bn-$5bn.

Developing and sustaining gas production in its non-associated Jurassic fields is a strategic priority for Kuwait, which has imported liquefied natural gas to feed its utilities and industries since 2009. The other priority project is the development of an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex at Al-Zour.