The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
RockRose founder in North Sea return
Oil and gas entrepreneur Andrew Austin is making his UK North Sea return with a new venture, just months after cashing in on the sale of RockRose Energy.
Mr Austin, 55, owned 27 % of London-based RockRose when he, as chief executive, and the rest of board decided to sell it to Viaro Energy for £ 247.5 million.
After a brief hiatus, he is back with a new investment vehicle, Kistos, which aims to “acquire assets with a role in energy transition”, mainly focused in the UK and continental Europe.
Kistos is Greek for the RockRose family of flowering plants. RockRose once said it was named after “a plant that grows in harsh environments, with minimal external support”.
In submission documents to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), Kistos said it would “focus on the hydrocarbon sector (including upstream and downstream opportunities ), energy infrastructure and energy assets capable of repurposing in the context of energy transition and net zero”.
These will have an enterprise value of £ 20m-£ 100m, which, if necessary, will be funded through “further equity issuance and debt to appropriate and prudent levels”, the new company added.
It comes amid a focus on the UK North Sea going net zero by 2050, a goal enshrined in law in the UK and now part of the Oil and Gas Authority’s regulatory regime.
Mr Austin is none xec utive chairman of London-registered Kistos, with a 70.5% stake prior to admission to the AIM.
Two other former RockRose and IGas people, Richard Benmore and Julie Barlow, are on board as non-executive directors. Mr Austin has also brought in industry veteran Alan Booth as senior independent non-executive director.
Kistos said it believes its investing policy can start achieving results within 18 months of AIM admission.
Announcing the sale of Rock Rose in July, Mr Austin said it had been an “exciting journey” in the five years since it was founded but it was now “time to move on and allow RockRose to continue to flourish with new backers”.
RockRose had grown rapidly through the acquisition of packages of non-operated assets, predominantly in the UK North Sea.
One early deal – soon after a stock market flotation in 2016, which raised £4.4m for the firm – saw RockRose take stakes in the Scott and Telford fields of 5.2% and 2.4% respectively. Later acquisitions from Egerton Energy Ventures and Sojitz Energy delivered production and cash flow – creating a platform for further expansion.
In May 2018, RockRose acquired a package of assets in the Netherlands for € 107m, which was followed last year by the acquisition of Marathon Oil’s UK business.
This gave RockRose its first UK operatorship – in the Brae area, about 155 miles north-east of Aberdeen.
But a legal dispute led to these assets being forcibly taken over by Taqa after partners in Brae raised concerns over RockRose’s ability to reduce the field’ s £1.3 billion decommissioning costs.
Prior to RockRose, Mr Austin was a founder and former chief executive of IGas Energy. He also has six years of management consultancy experience with clean technology companies under his belt.