Ithaca to decide on contentious Cambo development in first half of next year

The company in control of the controversial Cambo oil field will make its investment decision on the project in the first half of next year after completing a planned flotation on the London Stock Exchange by the end of 2022.

Chief executive Alan Bruce said Aberdeen-based Ithaca Energy expects to set the pricing for its listing in the second week of November after completing a roadshow for potential investors. The company, which employs roughly half of its 500 staff offshore, has been owned by Israel’s Delek Group since 2017 when it was acquired in a £1 billion deal.

Ithaca took a 70 per cent stake in Cambo in June of this year with the $1.5bn acquisition of Siccar Point Energy. That deal also included a 20% stake in another large untapped field, Rosebank, transforming Ithaca into one of the largest exploration and production companies in the UK North Sea.

Mr Bruce said it had “always been the plan” that Delek would build up Ithaca via acquisitions and then re-list the company at an appropriate time.

“Really the timing is more driven by the fact that we completed the acquisition of Siccar Point Energy earlier in the year,” he said, as opposed to the UK’s renewed appetite for domestic oil and gas production.

“Now that we have achieved that and we have achieved the scale required to support the business, that’s the driver for timing rather than any external factors. We are just focused on the factors we can control, which is our operational performance and what we are doing from a strategy perspective.”

Ithaca is currently re-validating the cost and schedule estimates on developing Cambo and Rosebank, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year. A final investment decision will be made in the first half of 2023.

Cambo is expected to yield up to 170 million barrels of oil equivalent over 25 years, plus 53.5 billion cubic feet of gas. It has been a major symbol in the fight between environmental campaigners who want to immediately end fossil fuel production and the oil industry, which prefers a more gradual approach.

Ithaca’s portfolio consists of 28 producing fields including six of the top 10 oil and gas producing fields in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). Mr Bruce said the company will continue expandin through investment in existing assets and further mergers and acquisitions.

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