Tycoon snaps up £800m of North Sea gas fields

TYCOON Jim Ratcliffe yesterday snapped up around £800m of oil and gas assets in the North Sea in his latest bid to turn his firm into a global force.

His private firm Ineos is buying Danish company Dong Energy’s oil and gas business, giving it access to a further potential 570m barrels of gas and oil reserves across ten fields in Denmark, Norway and the UK. It makes Ineos the largest private producer in the North Sea. Ratcliffe founded Ineos in 1998, and moved into offshore oil and gas in 2015, buying fields from Fairfield Energy and German group DEA.

He boosted his control over the North Sea last month buying BP’s Forties pipeline sys- tem, linking 84 North Sea oil and gas assets to the UK mainland including Ineos’ chemicals factory in Grangemouth.

Billionaire Ratcliffe, 64, said of the purchase: ‘This business is very important to us at this stage of our growth plans and we are delighted with the expertise that comes with it.’