Hong Kong-based United Energy Group (UEG) this week entered a “transaction agreement” to pay $651mn for all shares in Kuwait Energy (KEC)—a Bahrain-headquartered privately-held firm whose financial struggles have hampered development of its promising portfolio.

The deal would be UEG’s second largest to date since entering the upstream sector via the 2011 acquisition of BP’s Pakistan assets for $775mn. Pakistan accounted for all of the firm’s 62,300 boe/d net production in 2017 (primarily gas). The firm also closed its $192mn purchase of OMV’s Pakistan assets in June this year adding a further 42mn cfd and 550 b/d to its net production. (CONTINUED - 1010 WORDS)