North Sea oil & gas portfolio recalibration in progress with another asset swap deal

November 18, 2025, by Melisa Cavcic

Norwegian oil and gas player DNO has struck a new asset exchange deal to high-grade its North Sea portfolio. The latest move will enable it to swap assets with Orlen Upstream Norway, a subsidiary of Poland’s Orlen. The all-cash transactions are conditional on customary government approvals.

Ekofisk complex; Courtesy of ConocoPhillips

Shortly after its swap agreement with Aker BP, DNO has taken another divestment step by arranging to offload its 7.604% stake in the Ekofisk Previously Produced Fields (PPF) project in licenses PL018B and PL018F on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) to Orlen Upstream Norway in exchange for the acquisition of the latter’s 20% interest in license PL1135, which contains the Cassio prospect, as well as a 0.8272% interest in the Verdande field.

Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, DNO’s Executive Chairman, commented: “As we continue to highgrade our North Sea portfolio, our focus is on increasing near-term cash flow with less spend and more barrels more quickly.

“Ekofisk PPF covers redevelopment of older, shut-in fields with expected production start in 2029 and while the project fits other companies’ portfolios, we have chosen to deploy our share of the significant capital expenditure necessary in ways that play to our strengths, namely exploration and rapid-fire development of our existing discoveries.”

While DNO will retain its 7.604% in PL018, containing the producing Ekofisk, Eldfisk, and Embla fields as well as a share in the Tor unit, the acquisition of additional interests in Verdande brings the firm’s total interest in the Verdande unit, containing five licenses, to 14.8251%, including 3.5% from the recently announced asset swap with Aker BP.

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Verdande, situated in the Norne area, is currently in advanced development and scheduled to start production later this year. On the other hand, Cassio is located directly north of DNO-operated PL1086 (50% interest), which includes the Othello discovery, where a dry well was recently drilled.