The second largest refiner in Poland, Grupa Lotos SA, had entered into an agreement to purchase Centrica Plc's oil and gas exploration assets located in the Norwegian side of the North Sea. The purchase price amounted to USD175.8 million in accordance with its foreign expansion goals.
The state owned refiner would be purchasing 14 stakes amounting to between 5% and 50% in licenses related to the Heimdal hub. This was confirmed through a regulatory filing made by the Gdansk, Poland based company. Three of the oil fields is already producing oil and gas. The output is accounted under the Loto's stake amounting to nearly 5,000 barrels per day. This is double the production of the firm.
Lotos has been searching for exploration assets located in Norway in order to recover losses it sustained in the North Sea Yme oil field. Since 2011, the firm had written off nearly PLZ1.18 billion of the value of its 20% shareholdings in the Yme license attributed to the failure to produce the oil because of a crack that developed in the oil rig platform. In a statement, Lotos would be regaining nearly two thirds of the taxes paid out for the Yme license by 2016, projected to reach PLZ 1.07 billion.
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