UK: Hansa Hydrocarbons Acquires Interest in Southern North Sea Development Project

Hansa Hydrocarbons Limited (“Hansa”) has completed the acquisition of an interest in Licence P614 covering Block 47/14b (the “Licence”) containing the Juliet development in the Southern North Sea from First Oil Expro Ltd (“First Oil”).

Hansa will earn a 19% working interest in the Licence in return for contributing to First Oil’s share of the Juliet field development costs on a promoted basis. First Oil will retain a 29.44% working interest, with GdF Suez E&P UK Ltd (“GdF Suez”) holding the remaining 51.56%. GdF Suez is the operator of the Licence.

Block 47/14b is located in the UK Southern North Sea some 40km due east from the Humberside estuary in 59m of water. The field is located approximately 9km to the south of the Amethyst gas field. Juliet was discovered in December 2008 with well 47/14b-10 which flowed at 38 mmscfd of gas on test. As with the adjacent fields in the area, the reservoir sands are from the prolific Rotliegendes Leman sandstone and exhibit excellent reservoir characteristics.

The field development is being progressed on the basis of two subsea horizontal wells tied back to the BP-operated Amethyst A2D platform. Under this arrangement, existing infrastructure will be used to transport the Juliet gas from Amethyst to Easington onshore, and routed to the adjacent BP Dimlington terminal. Production services and well controls would be provided by Dimlington. Project sanction is planned for Q4 2010 with a project execution schedule delivering first gas in late 2011.

John Martin, Hansa Hydrocarbon’s CEO, said

” We are delighed to be joining the Juliet partners, GdF Suez and First Oil, at this exciting stage of development. This project fits well with our strategy in commercializing smaller gas fields and complements the portfolio in bringing production forward. Juliet has many similarities to our Thoresby field located some 30km to the southeast and this gives us an important opportunity to share learnings to the benefit of both projects.”

About Hansa Hydrocarbons:

Hansa Hydrocarbons is an E&P company focused on the prolific gas basin which extends across the Southern North Sea to onshore Northern Europe, concentrating on the development of appraisal opportunities. The company was launched in July 2008 with a $100 million equity commitment from the US based private equity firm, Avista Capital Partners. Hansa Hydrocarbons has built a portfolio of operated and non-operated projects in the UK and German Southern North Sea and continues to seek further opportunities to grow the portfolio through acquisiton and licence awards.

Hansa Hydrocarbons is progressing the development of its operated Thoresby field (UK Block 48/16b) and is actively evaluating the potential of its large German North Sea acreage (B20008/71 Licence) following the drilling of the L1-2 appraisal well in early 2010.

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Source: Hansa Hydrocarbons, October  5, 2010;