Bentley field sale expected to conclude this month

Liquidators are still on course to sell off one of the North Sea’s biggest undeveloped discoveries before the licence expires at the end of June.

FTI Consulting said in February that it was in advanced discussions with one party over the sale of Xcite Energy’s 100% stake in the Bentley field.

But no further updates were published until today, when FTI said talks had yet to reach a conclusion.

Ian Morton, senior director at FTI, said discussions with “all requisite stakeholders” were continuing to “achieve completion prior to 30 June 2017”.

Mr Morton and Chad Griffin of FTI were appointed liquidators in December.

Xcite got into trouble after issuing £110million-worth of bonds to repay debts and pay for Bentley.

But it was unable to secure extra funds to pay back the bonds, which matured in full on October 31, 2016.

Bondholders rejected a debt-for-equity swap and an application was filed to place the company into liquidation in December.

Bentley is located on the East Shetland Platform, five miles south-east of the Bressay field – operated by Statoil, with Shell as its partner – and nine miles east of the EnQuest-operated Kraken field.

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