NEO Energy agrees deal with Equinor

NEO Energy strikes deal with Norwegian operator Equinor on the Isolde exploration field in the UK North Sea.

NEO Energy, backed by private equity group HitecVision, has farmed into 45% of Isolde, targeting up to 100 million barrels of oil equivalent in the Central North Sea.

Details of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but it leaves Equinor with a 40% stake and Soliton Resources, which worked up the prospect, with 15%.

NEO Energy, Equinor and Soliton expect the prospect in licence P2390, to have similar resources and geology to other analogous fields in the sector.

Soliton said in September that a dozen such fields have been brought into production in the CNS, through tiebacks like the Shell Shearwater hub.

Graham Goffey, managing director at Soliton, said: “I’m delighted that NEO have farmed in to Equinor’s interest to progress the Isolde prospect to near term drilling.

“With its close proximity to production platforms that are likely to be electrified, a success at Isolde could lead to an extremely low emissions development, limiting the UK’s fast-growing reliance on imported oil and gas”.

NEO Energy holds interests in more than 20 assets in the UK sector; its main asset in the CNS is the Global Producer III FPSO.

Since launching in 2019, the firm has completed a series of high-profile deals in the North Sea with operators including TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil and Zennor.

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