The TotalEnergies West of Shetland offshore assets it agreed to sell to Prax Group last year remain under the French oil major's ownership, it said on Wednesday, so will not be subject to disposals resulting from liquidation proceedings affecting the British company.
"The transaction to sell our West of Shetland asset to Prax has not yet completed and as such we remain the operator of the Shetland Gas Plant and related fields," TotalEnergies EP UK said in its statement.
TotalEnergies had agreed to sell Prax a portfolio of mature offshore fields producing about 7,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day, plus exploration licenses and a gas plant, in a deal that would involve transferring employees to Prax.
Prax Group's parent company, State Oil, as well as Prax's Lindsey refinery in Britain entered liquidation proceedings this week, with an administrator saying that all financial options were being considered. Those included a sale of Prax's upstream business and retail operations in Britain and Europe, all of which remain outside insolvency.
A spokesperson for the British oil and gas regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) declined to comment on whether the sale of the TotalEnergies assets to Prax could proceed given the insolvency proceedings.
The NSTA referred Reuters to its rules on change of ownership of oil and gas assets, which say the regulator considers the financial and technical capability of potential buyers to be critical when assessing transactions for approval.
(Reuters - Reporting by America Hernandez in ParisEditing by David Goodman)