Centrica PLC has agreed to sell nearly half of its stake in the Cygnus gas field in the southern North Sea for £215 million as the energy group continues to scale back its exposure to fossil fuel production and pivot towards low-carbon infrastructure projects.
The deal, announced on Tuesday, involves the sale of a 46.25% interest in Cygnus by Spirit Energy, the oil and gas joint venture majority owned by Centrica.
The buyer is Ithaca Energy PLC, which already owns a share of the field and operates the site.
Cygnus is located around 150 kilometres off the east coast of England and is one of the largest gas fields in the UK sector of the North Sea. It supplies about 6% of the UK’s gas demand during peak periods.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ithaca will pay £116 million in cash and take on £99 million in decommissioning liabilities, the future costs of dismantling infrastructure and restoring the seabed.
British Gas owner Centrica, which owns 69% of Spirit Energy, expects to receive about £80 million from the headline sum.
The transaction is expected to complete in the second half of 2025, subject to regulatory approvals, with the deal backdated to take effect from the beginning of the year.
Centrica said the sale was in line with its strategy to extract value from Spirit’s remaining oil and gas assets while preparing for a shift towards net zero operations.
Spirit will continue to focus on its remaining production assets and the Morecambe Net Zero carbon storage project, which it has described as Europe’s largest planned carbon capture and storage scheme.
The deal will reduce Spirit Energy’s proven and probable reserves, a technical measure of the quantity of oil and gas still available for extraction, by 19.4 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Centrica’s chief executive, Chris O’Shea, said the disposal marked another step in reducing the company’s exposure to gas production and was part of its broader transition strategy.
He said the deal would help accelerate returns to shareholders while supporting Spirit’s shift to low-carbon infrastructure.
