Israel's Delek buys 13 pct of Faroe Petroleum for 43 mln pounds

TEL AVIV, Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 25 (Reuters) - Israel's Delek Group (Frankfurt: 6D4A.F - news) said on Sunday it acquired 13.18 percent of Faroe Petroleum PLC (LSE: FPM.L - news) from Dana Petroleum Ltd for 42.77 million pounds ($52.6 million) as part of a strategy to expand its international energy activities.

Delek bought from Dana Petroleum all the Faroe shares it owned - 48.06 million shares - at 89 pence each.

Faroe is an oil and gas exploration and production company operating in the North Sea. Its shares traded on AIM closed at 99 pence on Friday for a company valuation of 360 million pounds.

Faroe has no controlling shareholder and upon completion of the acquisition Delek will be its largest single shareholder.

Faroe's portfolio includes about 60 drilling, evaluation, development and production licenses for oil and gas in the North Sea, in Norway and the United Kingdom.

As of Jan. 1 resources stood at 61 million barrels of oil equivalent (MMBOE), and following completion of a transaction for the acquisition of additional assets in December, proven resources are expected to increase by 20 MMBOE.

In the first half of 2016 Faroe produced 9,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD), and following acquisition of the additional assets, daily production is expected to grow to 17,000-18,000 BOEPD.

"Acquisition of the Faroe shares is synergistic with and complements the purchase of 20 percent of the shares of Ithaca, which we did about a year ago," Delek Chief Executive Officer Asaf Bartfeld said.

($1 = 0.8137 pounds) (Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Steven Scheer)