DNO, the Norwegian oil and gas operator in which RAK Petroleum has a stake, made an offer of £443.8 million (Dh2.1 billion) to gain full ownership of London-listed Faroe Petroleum.
DNO, which currently owns 28.22 per cent of Faroe, will offer 152 pence in cash for each Faroe share, valuing the company at £607.9m, it said in a statement on Monday. The offer represents a 20.8 per cent premium on the 105 pence closing price of Faroe on November 23.
“We firmly believe that Faroe's assets, the substantial part of which are Norwegian, are better placed in the bosom of DNO, Norway's oldest independent oil and gas company, currently operating gross production of 125,000 barrels per day which compares with the 7,500 barrels of oil equivalent a day of gross production operated by Faroe,” said DNO executive chairman Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani. “DNO's proven and probable reserves were nearly four times those of Faroe's as reported at December 31, 2017.”
RAK Petroleum holds a 40.45 per cent stake in Oslo-listed DNO, which focuses on oil exploration and production in the Middle East, particularly in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and offshore of Oman’s Musandam peninsula.
DNO expects to end this year with operational Kurdistan production of at least 130,000 bpd, accounting for more than half of total production by international operators and around one-third of all Kurdistan exports.
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DNO's gross production averaged 117,578 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) during the third quarter, of which 113,175 bpd was in Kurdistan and 4,403 boepd in Oman.
RAK Petroleum posted a net profit of $31m for the first half of 2018, a sharp increase from the same period last year when its restated net profit was $2.9m. Total assets stood at $2 billion, up from $1.7bn in the same period of 2017.
