Providing its comment after Chrysaor agreed to buy ConocoPhillips’ North Sea assets in a US$2.7 billion deal, Romana Adamcikova, Wood Mackenzie senior analyst, North Sea upstream, said that Chrysaor will now become the top producer in the UK in 2019 and will be among UK’s largest producers for the next few years.
Ms Adamcikova explained that the deal depicts a pattern seen across the North Sea in recent years with regionally focused, private companies acquiring assets from larger, international players.
Considering the company was a relatively small producer before it acquired a batch of assets from Shell in 2017, this is a story of incredible growth
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Chrysaor is also interested in taking older assets and invest to increase production with its efforts aiming at the Greater Armada Area, which was due to be decommissioned before Chrysaor bought it from Shell in 2017.
Something similar could happen now, especially considering the fact that it became an operator at the Britannia and J-Area hubs in the Central North Sea, which has shown potential for further growth.
As for ConocoPhillips, Ms. Adamcikova noted that it is now focusing on lower cost opportunities elsewhere in the world, particularly in the US. For this reason, UK fields would have struggled to compete for capital.
Chrysaor also gains a stronger presence in the West of Shetland with a stake in Clair. It already had an interest in the Schiehallion field. There is huge growth potential in the region and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Chrysaor make further moves in the near future, to bolster its mid- to long- term production outlook
Romana Adamcikova concludes.
