The North Sea still has potential for portfolio optimisation
North Sea buyers wanted
The UKCS in particular has a pipeline of assets for sale. But who will the purchasers be?
“We got off to a really fast start at the beginning of this year. It has somewhat stagnated in the North Sea, but we still see plenty of opportunities in the pipeline.” So said Neivan Boroujerdi, principal analyst, North Sea upstream oil and gas at consultancy Wood Mackenzie, speaking at the Energy Voice Future North Sea conference in early September. Boroujerdi sees different types of actors that could be sellers of North Sea assets, including Asian players. “A good example of that is Japanese trading houses really changing their approach to upstream in light of net CO₂ targets,” he says. While ExxonMobil, Chevron, TotalEnergies, BP and Shell have all sold North Sea assets in recent years,
Also in this section
16 January 2026
The country’s global energy importance and domestic political fate are interlocked, highlighting its outsized oil and gas powers, and the heightened fallout risk
16 January 2026
The global maritime oil transport sector enters 2026 facing a rare convergence of crude oversupply, record newbuild deliveries and the potential easing of several geopolitical disruptions that have shaped trade flows since 2022
15 January 2026
Rebuilding industry, energy dominance and lower energy costs are key goals that remain at odds in 2026
14 January 2026
Chavez’s socialist reforms boosted state control but pushed knowledge and capital out of the sector, opening the way for the US shale revolution
