FAROE Petroleum said it has funding in place to pursue a full exploration and development programme after completing the acquisition of Norwegian assets that will generate money.
Aberdeen-based Faroe Petroleum said the deal to swap a stake in the Maria discovery, which it made for stakes in five fields held by Petoro, would provide a big boost to production.
The assets have produced the equivalent of 7600 barrels oil equivalent per day this year. Faroe's existing production assets are expected to average 2500 boepd. Its production averaged 1200 boepd in 2010.
The company said production will average 6000 to 8000 boepd next year. Output from the Njord field acquired from Petoro will be reduced temporarily while work is completed on a riser that brings the output to the surface. It should be restored in 2013.
Graham Stewart, chief executive, said: "The deal increases the company's cash flows and debt capacity and allows us to finance our planned high-impact exploration programme, as well as our committed field investment plan."
Faroe said work to assess the Fulla discovery it made West of Shetland in August showed the quality of the oil was at the upper end of expectations but volume was lower than estimates.
The company believes Fulla and nearby Freya have around 166 million barrels oil in place.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article