Ineos farms out two Norwegian licenses to Lime Petroleum

Rex International’s 90 per cent subsidiary, Lime Petroleum, has completed the acquisition of a 15 per cent stake in two Ineos’ licenses in the Norwegian Sea.

Rex International said on Monday that the acquisition of the stakes in licenses PL937 and PL937B was closed on 29 May 2020.

Pursuant to the completion of the farm-in, which will have an effective date from 1 January 2020, Lime Petroleum now holds 15 per cent interests in each of the licences.

Ineos will remain the operator of both PL937 and PL937B.

The licences PL937 and PL937B are located in Frøya High in the Norwegian Sea in a water depth of some 325 metres. Before the farm-in, both licenses were 100 per cent owned by Ineos.

It is worth mentioning that Lime Petroleum initially entered into an agreement with Ineos for the farm-in on 20 March 2020.

Exploration drilling on the licences is expected in early 2021, with the planned well targeting a large prospect called Fat Canyon.

At the time, Dan Broström, executive chairman of Rex International, said: “Our strategy to do ‘just-in-time’ farm-ins has served us well in 2019.

“We were able to participate in the drilling of an exploration well in PL838 shortly after the farm-in and the well was completed with the Shrek discovery. We are optimistic about and anticipate the opportunity to repeat our success with the Shrek and Rolvsnes discoveries […]”.

Lars Hübert, CEO of Lime Petroleum, added: “The farm-in fits in with our technology-led and near-field exploration strategy. The Njord field is located some 30 kilometres to the north while the adjacent Fenja field will start production in 2021”.

To remind, Lime Petroleum in April farmed into another pair of licenses. This time owned by Equinor.

Namely, Lime Petroleum signed an agreement with the Norwegian oil major for the acquisition of 20 per cent interests in the PL263D and PL263E licences located in the Norwegian Sea.

As is the case with the two Ineos licenses, Equinor already has plans in place regarding exploration drilling there. According to Equinor’s schedule, drilling is set to begin in the last quarter of the year.