RockRose Energy announced that it has approached the board of directors of Independent Oil and Gas (‘IOG’) with a proposal for an all cash takeover offer for IOG. The proposal was rejected. Independent Oil and Gas said the bid undervalued the company and the potential of its assets. They will instead focus on securing a farm-out partner for its core Southern North Sea project to provide funding.
RockRose is clearly looking to grow its business inorganically. Only last week the independent oil an gas company acquired all the UK assets of Marathon Oil (Read also “Marathon Oil exits UK”). RockRose has expanded rapidly since it was founded in 2015, in the middle of the oil price crash. The Marathon deal is the latest of several deals in the last two years including acquisitions in the UK and Netherlands gas basin as well as Idemitsu’s central North Sea assets.
According to Dave Mosely from Westwood Global Energy in Energyvoice, RockRose is looking for additional reserves under development, to offer some balance to the current portfolio which is heavily weighted towards late life fields. The acquisition of Marathon’s assets brought with it expansion into the West of Shetlands and first operatorship in the UK but also the decommissioning liability for the assets, which include the Greater Brae Area.
