Italian energy company has reportedly upped a takeover offer for UK North Sea firm Neptune Energy.
According to news agency Reuters, Rome-based Eni has sweetened its bid to “below $6 billion” (£4.82 billion).
Reuters said Eni was in “exclusive talks” to buy private equity-backed gas and oil producer Neptune.
A spokesman for Neptune, whose UK offshore oil and gas assets are managed from offices on North Esplanade West, Aberdeen, declined to comment.
Eni has also declined to comment.
UK firm’s global activities
Neptune has oil and gas interests in the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, North Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.
Group-wide operations are run from headquarters in London.
According to Reuters’ sources, Neptune and Eni recently started a new phase of discussions after months of slow-moving negotiations.
The Italian firm has now agreed to up its initial offer and is willing to spend between $5bn (£4bn) and $6bn, Reuters’ sources said.
Negotiations have significantly progressed but there is no guarantee an agreement would be reached, they told Reuters.
Neptune is currently owned by China Investment Corporation, Carlyle Group and CVC Capital Partners.
The company was launched in 2015 as Neptune Oil and Gas.
Carlyle and CVC Capital Partners said they had signed up former Centrica boss Sam Laidlaw to lead a new investment company targeting “large oil and gas portfolios that may come available as a result of current energy market dynamics”.
The move came five months after the then prime minister David Cameron revealed Washington DC-headquartered Carlyle was putting £660 million into the UK offshore industry in a “clear vote of confidence” in the sector.
Mr Laidlaw is now executive chairman of Neptune. Others on the board include Pete Jones, the former Aberdeen-based managing director of Taqa Europe.
The company operates the Cygnus Alpha and Cygnus Bravo facilities, producing gas from the Cygnus field – the UK southern North Sea’s largest single producing gas field.
In the central North Sea Neptune is developing the Seagull oil and gas field alongside partners BP and Japex. Seagull is due to come onstream this year.
Neptune also has a working interest in the Isabella exploration discovery in the central North Sea.
Eni has been active in the UK since 1964. Its current business in Britain spans exploration and production, liquefied natural gas, refining and chemicals, among others.
The Italian firm shut a North Sea oil and gas -focused office in Aberdeen in 2004, axing 60 jobs.
Another 53 posts were relocated to London and 50 workers transferred to Canadian Natural Resources, which had recently taken over Eni’s interests in six North Sea fields.
Is Harbour also in takeover talks?
Meanwhile, North Sea giant Harbour Energy is reportedly in “merger” talks with US firm Talos Energy, whose activities are focused on the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters said it had been told by four sources that talks between the firms are ongoing.
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