Petrogas banks on Dutch experience

The Omani firm hopes to bring learnings from its Netherlands’ acquisition to bear on its entry into the UKCS

Privately-held Omani oil producer Petrogas teamed up in July with Neo E&P, a vehicle of Norwegian private equity (PE) firm Hitec Vision, to buy a swathe of assets on the UK continental shelf (UKCS) from Total for $635mn. The stakes in 10 fields, seven with operatorships, had previously belonged to Denmark's Maersk and were acquired by Total in 2018. Petrogas' CEO Usama al Barwani spoke to Petroleum Economist about how the firm was aiming to leverage its experience in the Dutch sector of the North Sea to grow its new UKCS business. There have been relatively few recent international new entrants into the North Sea, with players preferring US shale or frontier deepwater. Why is Petrogas bu