Centrica Signs Further Gas import Deal With ENI

The UK gas provider, Centrica, says that it has agreed an eighty five million pound ($128m) offshore asset swap with the Italian energy group Eni that gives it extra gas for its customers.

Eni will add Centrica's 8.9 percent interest in the Liverpool Bay Field to its existing 45 percent stake there.

In exchange, Centrica will take on a basket of Eni assets including its 5.6 percent interest in the Armada Field, where Centrica already has a presence, and its four and a half percent interest in the Goldeneye field that is still in development.

The deal exchanges 700 million therms of gas contracted to power stations in the UK for a matching amount of uncontracted supplies that Centrica can use to supply its British Gas retail customers.

Through its British Gas arm, the Centrica group bills about seventy percent of the UK's gas customers.

Centrica will receive a balancing cash payment of about half the eighty five million pound estimated value of the swap to each party to account for assets not yet in production, and book a “small loss” on the disposal of the Liverpool Bay assets.

The deal gives the group about 700 therms of uncontracted gas production.

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