A sea of contrasts

The two most important oil and gas producing sectors of the North Sea are looking increasingly different as investment prospects. In UK waters, there is an acceleration of asset sales by the major companies – and a rapid advance of the specialist producers, with strategies to benefit from smaller-scale operations. In Norwegian waters – where costs and risks are higher – large firms still predominate, Martin Quinlan writes

THE CORPORATE structures of the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea show how their investment attractions differ. In the UK, licence interests are held by 75 companies - many of them small and some of them new and little-known. Small companies even hold operatorships and specialist contractors (such as Petrofac) are emerging to take on facility-management responsibilities for small operators. In contrast, there are only 32 licence participants in Norway and the operators are mostly large companies. Investment attraction Another indicator of investment attraction is the trade in offshore assets; it also shows a sharp contrast. In the UK, there is a lively market - encouraged by the Depa