Japan’s Inpex to buy stake in Barents Sea licence

LNG developer and stakeholder, Inpex said Friday that it has entered into a deal to buy a 40% participating interest in exploration license PL767 located in the western Barents Sea offshore Norway.

The Japanese company will buy the stake from Bayerngas Norge through its unit Inpex Norge AS.

Inpex’s acquisition of this participating interest will hand the company its first ever project in Norway, and is expected to contribute to the further enhancement of Inpex’s global project portfolio, the statement said.

The license is located in the western Barents Sea about 120 kilometers offshore Norway and covers a surface area of 211 square kilometers where the water depth ranges between approximately 300 and 400 meters.

Inpex said it would continue to assess the possibility of discovering hydrocarbon deposits through exploration activities, following the required administrative procedures involving Norwegian government authorities and Lundin Norway, the operator of the license and a unit of Lundin Petroleum.