British gas and electricity supplier Centrica announced on Wednesday it has reached a deal to sell its gas fields offshore Trinidad & Tobago to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary for $30m, according to Reuters.
Under the deal, Shell Exploration and Production will acquire a 17.3% stake in the North Coast Marine Area-1 (NCMA-1) producing block as well as respective 80% and 90% stakes in two as yet undeveloped blocks.
With the sale, Centrica sheds its final interest in fields off the Caribbean islands in which it had first invested in 2010. The decision to sell is part of the UK firm’s divestment strategy as it intends to focus future E&P efforts on Britain, the Netherlands and Norway.
For Shell the purchase consolidates its position as the world’s leading liquefied natural gas (LNG) trader, which it attained overnight in February with its $54bn acquisition of BG Group. That move also instantly made Shell the biggest foreign player offshore Brazil.
Shell has a stake in Atlantic LNG, which operates one of the world’s biggest LNG plants at Point Fortin in southwest Trinidad.
