Centrica Resumes Talks on Spirit Sale: Press

UK energy group Centrica has resumed talks to sell its North Sea exploration and production arm Spirit Energy, Bloomberg reported on December 7.

The company put its 69% stake in the business up for sale last year under plans to focus more on energy supply, only to shelve the divestment this summer because of market volatility. Centrica is looking to shore up its financial position after booking further losses in the first half of this year. It recently sold off its North American energy supply, services and trading subsidiary Direct Energy to US NRG Energy for $3.6bn to bring down its debt, and is also understood to be seeking a buyer for its LNG supply contracts.

Discussions with "a number of parties" for Centrica's position in Spirit are again underway, the company told Bloomberg, although the official sales process has not restarted. Centrica did not respond to a request to comment by NGW. 

Spirit operates dozens of fields and development projects and its output, the bulk of which is gas, is expected to remain above 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day through to 2025.  Centrica took a £381mn impairment charge on Spirit and its other operations in the first half of the year, in light of the collapse in oil and gas prices. Spirit's other owner is Germany's Stadtwerke Muenchen, which was also reported to be considering a divestment last year.