Russian Fridman's oil firm DEA looks to snap up more Norwegian assets

OSLO, June 16 (Reuters) -

** Oil and gas firm DEA, controlled by Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman, eyes more deals in Norway, the firm's recently appointed Norway manager told Reuters in an interview

** "We see the withdrawal of the majors from the continental shelf rather as a chance than a threat, so we see this opens up opportunities for us to grow inorganically," Hans-Hermann Andreae said

** A sign of majors retreating came when Shell (LSE: RDSB.L - news) withdrew its application for acreage in Norway's 23rd licensing round in the Barents Sea earlier this year, while other majors such as ExxonMobil, Eni (LSE: 0N9S.L - news) and Total (LSE: 524773.L - news) did never apply

** DEA, owned by Fridman's investment vehicle LetterOne, last year bought E.ON's oil and gas assets in Norway for $1.6 billion

** "We've shown what we can do with the E.ON acquisition and... this is about the typical size of things that might happen," Andreae said

** "In any case such an acquisition is funded by the shareholders, so it's not out of our cash flow. That helps of course a lot. And they (the shareholders) still have cash"

** He said the Norwegian business remains important for the firm as Norway accounts for around 70,000 barrels of oil equivalents per day compared to the firm's total output of around 123,000-125,000 boepd

** A final investment decision for the Zidane project, a natural gas field in the Norwegian Sea, will be made by "late summer or early fall", Andreae said

** "We are not delivering the final plan to the authorities as previously promised by Aug. 1 because Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) would like to retender more work and more contracts as they believe we could achieve some more cost savings"

** Statoil is handling the modules that must be added to the Heidrun field to which the subsea templates on Zidane will be linked

** DEA will more than halve its Norwegian workforce after the E.ON transaction: "We had prior to the merger two companies with approximately 90 staff members each... the new organisation will have about 80 staff members (in total) and deal with a significantly higher number of licences"

** He said the firm will focus on the projects "that are creating the biggest value like Skarv, Snorre, Njord, Gjoea to some extent, Zidane obviously and a few more"

** DEA Norway plans to spend more than $100 million on exploration this year out of its total capex of around $230 million (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Terje Solsvik)