EnQuest closes acquisition of Whalsay’s Bentley field in UK North Sea

UK oil and gas company EnQuest has completed the buy of a 100 per cent equity interest in the P.1078 license containing the proven Bentley heavy-oil discovery from Whalsay Energy.

The transaction was conducted through the acquisition of Whalsay’s subsidiary, Whalsay Energy Limited, which holds the license as its only asset, on a cash, liability, and debt-free basis.

As for the financial details, the two companies previously agreed that EnQuest would fund certain accrued costs and obligations expected to amount to less than $2 million on completion.

No other upfront consideration was payable and EnQuest will make deferred payments to Whalsay based on future revenues generated by the acquired company which are capped at $40 million.

As for the field, Bentley is in the UK North Sea in 113 metres water depth, 15 kilometres east of the Kraken heavy oil field and 8 kilometres southeast of the Bressay field, both of which are operated by EnQuest.

Bentley is one of the largest undeveloped oil fields in the UKCS with the current operator estimating stock-tank oil initially in place of around 900 mmbbls.

The field was discovered in 1977 and has been appraised through the drilling and testing of six further wells and two sidetracks, including extended well tests in 2012 which delivered production rates of around 3,500 bopd and an average of around 2,600 bopd over a 68 day well test.

The development plan for the field proposed by Whalsay targets an initial development phase concentrated in the core area of the field, producing at rates of up to 45,000 bopd.

It is based on utilising a 20 well slot platform, with 17 dual lateral ESP producers and three produced water re-injection wells, installed with conventional topsides fluid handling facilities processing Bentley crude to export specification.

The platform will be connected to an FSO vessel, and oil exported in 500,00 bbl parcel sizes via shuttle tanker. Whalsay estimated the cost to first oil at $729 million with an economic field life of 35 years.