OSLO (Reuters) -TotalEnergies and Aker BP are seeking an independent review of their stakes in Equinor’s Johan Sverdrup oilfield with a goal of boosting their holdings in the North Sea’s largest producing field, Aker BP said on Wednesday.
Built across several offshore oil and gas licences, Sverdrup is currently owned 42.63% by its operator Equinor, while Aker BP holds 31.57%, Norwegian state-owned oil firm Petoro 17.36% and France’s TotalEnergies the remaining 8.44%.
The owners of the field, which began producing oil in 2019, have the right to seek reviews of their stakes based on production and reservoir data.
Both TotalEnergies and Aker BP used an option to call for a redetermination – a process to decide again on their stakes – in January, Aker BP CEO Karl Johnny Hersvik told reporters.
“I’m not going to speculate on the results of such a process, but obviously we wouldn’t have done that if we didn’t expect a positive change,” Hersvik said.
He told Reuters that redetermination could lead to a possible change in ownership rates at Sverdrup, but declined to comment on how big the adjustments could be.
“The future production (share) will be according to the new stake, and then you’re compensated for the stake that you should have had previously, but back to a certain date,” Hersvik said.
Any such compensation would likely be made in the form of additional oil volumes for the partners to sell.
Equinor said that as the Sverdrup operator, it was running the redetermination process in accordance with regulations.
Hersvik said he expected the process to last about 12 to 18 months.
TotalEnergies and Petoro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sverdrup is expected to produce around 720,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day on average in 2025, close to its level in 2023-2024, Equinor said last week.
Aker BP’s share of Sverdrup’s output accounted for about half of the company’s production in 2024.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Christian Schmollinger and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
