Lime Petroleum buys stake in Repsol’s North Sea field

Lime Petroleum, a Norwegian subsidiary of Singapore’s Rex International, has completed the acquisition of a stake in the Repsol-operated Yme field located offshore Norway.

Lime Petroleum entered into a sale and purchase agreement with Kufpec Norway in August for the acquisition of a 10 per cent interest in the field for a post-tax consideration of $68 million.

The completion was concluded on 23 December with an initial payment of $55 million. Deferred payment of the balance, including the settlement costs, will be paid in 30 working days after the completion.

As part of the settlement, ABG Sundal Collier has been engaged to raise NOK 250 million (approximately $25.5 million) from the tap mechanism in the bond set up in June. The tap will be raised during January 2023, with ABG Sundal Collier as the underwriter. After the tap issue, the total bond will be NOK 1,200 million (approximately $122.2 million).

In the announcement about the planned acquisition from August, Rex explained that the production from the Yme field will contribute to its target of reaching a production of 20,000 bpd across various geographies.

The Yme field was discovered in 1987 located in Block 9/2 and 9/5 in the Egersund Basin, approximately 130 kilometers from the Norwegian coastline.

However, it did not start production until 1996. Back in 2001, production ceased because the operation of the field was no longer regarded as profitable. Repsol took over the project in 2015 and submitted a revised PDO for the field in December 2017, which was approved in March 2018.

The new development project entailed the engineering, procurement and installation of a new wellhead module on top of the existing facilities, the modifications and upgrading of the Maersk Inspirer mobile offshore drilling and production unit prior to installation in the field and subsequent hook-up to existing wells in and installations on the seabed offshore.

After years of delays, the Yme field started producing again in late October 2021, but had been shut down multiple times since then.

The first shutdown occurred in November 2021, less than a month after the first oil, to “assess the high oil in water readings,” while the second one took place in May 2022. In September, Repsol announced it had been forced once again to temporarily shut down the field due to technical issues.

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