Ineos Buys Offshore U.K. Gas Fields

Petrochemicals producer Ineos has agreed to purchase a series of gas fields in the North Sea off the coast of the U.K. from DEA, a German oil and gas firm. Local reports state that the deal is worth about $770 million. It is Ineos’s first purchase of offshore gas fields, though the firm has secured a series of onshore gas licenses in the U.K. Gas from the fields will cover a significant share of the company’s raw material needs, says Rob Nevin, chairman of Ineos Upstream. The U.K. government forced DEA’s owner, the Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, to sell the gas fields as part of sanctions imposed on Russia for military activities in Ukraine.