HELGE Hammer has lately taken a keen interest in Japan. The Longboat Energy chief executive has become a fan since Norwegian offshore exploration company Longboat agreed a transformative deal with oil and gas major Japan Production Exploration (Japex) that will see the two companies join forces in Norway. The deal, announced on 2 May, will see Japex acquire 49.9% of Longboat's Norwegian subsidiary, Longboat Norge, which will be renamed Longboat Japex Norge. In return, Japex will invest about $150 million over the next three years on exploration, development and the acquisition of new interests in the country. Stavanger-headquartered Longboat, founded in 2019, has made a big impression with five discoveries from the eight exploration wells it has drilled, including Kveikje and Oswig. The company had been looking to sell down some discoveries to boost its balance sheet, and had received some offers, but then Japex came along and identified Longboat as an access point to Norway's prodigious upstream oil and gas sector. Hammer says: "When we started this process, we didn't expect this to happen. It was not planned."
展开▼
