Norwegian oil company OKEA has agreed to buy Equinor's stake in the Aurora gas discovery in the North Sea, offshore Norway for an undisclosed amount.
OKEA will acquire Equinor’s 40% operated working interest in PL195 and PL195 B, which contain the Aurora discovery.
"Aurora is a small gas discovery in the North Sea located west of the Gjøa field. OKEA estimates that the recoverable volumes are in the range of 12-28 mmboe," OKEA said Wednesday. According to Norskpetroleum, the Aurora discovery was made in 1988.
Wintershall DEA and Petoro each hold 25% and 35% working interest each in the licenses, respectively.
OKEA aims to become operator for the licenses and pursue a low-cost development of Aurora as a tie-in to Gjøa without further appraisal drilling. Both the transaction and a potential change in operatorship are subject to approval by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy.
“By this transaction, we are diversifying our portfolio as well as strengthening our position in the Gjøa area. A development of Aurora fits right into the core of OKEA’s strategy with low-cost field development of smaller discoveries”, said Erik Haugane, CEO of OKEA.
OKEA was formed in 2015 with the aim to acquire and bring undeveloped discoveries with less than 100 million boe in reserves into production.
The company in 2018 acquired interests in Draugen and Gjøa fields for 4.52 Billion NOK (US$526 million) from Shell.
OKEA on Tuesday said that its total net production in the second quarter of 2020 was reduced to 16,047 ( vs 20,045) boepd due to planned shutdowns at both Draugen and Gjøa (non-operated asset).
During the quarter, OKEA rescheduled the planned maintenance shutdown at Draugen to re-optimise the operation for the production restriction measures implemented by the Norwegian Government.