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Here's a tale of two oil companies. Norway's Statoil is sitting on so many high-quality assets that it has the luxury of shedding peripheral field acreage that to others would be absolutely core. Austria's OMV is in the opposite position. Over-reliant on mature oilfields in Romania, and with a 10th of its daily production hostage to political events in Libya, it is in search of better assets in safer environments.

Hence Monday's deal under which Statoil offloaded four assets in the North Sea to OMV for a price that could reach $3-billion (U.S.). This is OMV's biggest acquisition, which says a lot. It has little choice but to splurge – it is the easiest way to acquire growth that will not come organically. OMV produces 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day from fields in central Europe, the Middle East and north Africa. With a production target of 400,000 bd by 2016, it had to make an acquisition. Moreover, it has the cash: OMV produced a very respectable €1.6-billion ($2.2-billion Canadian) of free cash flow (after its dividend commitment) in the first half of 2013, and it is streamlining operationally and shedding subscale downstream activities.

But buying mature assets in secure operating environments does not come cheap. OMV is acquiring 19 per cent of the Gullfaks field and 24 per cent in Gudrun (both in Norwegian waters) and 30 per cent of Rosebank and 6 per cent of Schiehallion in UK waters west of Shetland. Statoil says that capital expenditure associated with the assets it has sold could have amounted to $5.5-billion (U.S.) by 2020.

OMV is now taking on that burden – its existing 2013 capex commitment is €2.8-billion – while the acquisition lifts its gearing (the ratio of net debt to equity) to 30 per cent. That is a considerable change in its financial dynamics. It may also be a good enough reason for OMV's share price, which has outperformed its European rivals handsomely this year, to pause for breath.

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