Chrysaor Holdings £3 billion acquisition of Shell North Sea oil assets

Overview:

• Chrysaor has acquired a significant portion of Shell's North Sea assets for £3 billion.
• The assets amount to around 50% of Shell's UK portfolio and include ten oil and gas assets – Buzzard, Beryl, Bressay, Elgin-Franklin, J-Block, Greater Armada cluster, Everest, Lomond and Erskine and a 10% stake in Schiehallion off the Shetland Islands.
• Chrysaor is an oil group backed by Harbour Energy and EIG and led by former Shell employee Linda Cook who had headed up the firm's gas and renewables business.
• The deal has been part financed by a $1.5 billion reserve-based ledning facility provided by DNB, ING, BNP Paribas, Citi and Bank of Montréal.
• The deal is part of Shell's wider plan to reduce its debt through the sale of $30 billion of assets by 2018.
• The deal is one of a number of M&A projects relating to the North Sea that have been undertaken recently. In November Siccar Point Energy acquired OMV UK and in January 2017 EnQuest acquired a 25% stake in the Magnus field from BP.

Sam Duke - Editor