Orlen to buy Kufpec’s oil, gas producing assets in Norway for $445 million

(Bloomberg) — Poland’s largest refiner Orlen SA agreed to purchase oil and gas producing assets on the Norwegian continental shelf from Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Co. for $445 million as part of an effort to diversify shipments of natural gas to the eastern European country.

The acquisition of stakes in five fields will help Orlen boost its gas production in Norway by a third to more than 4 billion cubic meters, the Warsaw-listed company said in an emailed statement. Such output will allow it to fill about a half of the Baltic Pipe link to Poland with its own production.

Poland has been investing in alternative gas sources in preparation to wean itself off Russian supplies. The pipeline to Norway, links to neighboring countries as well as expansion of liquefied natural gas infrastructure allowed it to smoothly transition away from the deliveries from the eastern direction after Gazprom PJSC unexpectedly cut the flow in April 2022, eight months before the end of the contract.

Orlen says the assets it has bought from KPC’s subsidiary Kufpec are at the fields where it already holds its own stakes, which will help the integration. Its reserves in Norway will rise to 400 million barrels of oil equivalent and daily production will exceed 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent.