Shell to sell New Zealand assets

Vienna: Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has announced it will sell assets in New Zealand to the Austrian oil and gas group OMV for $578mn.

The deal includes stakes in the Maui and Pohokura gas fields, and follows the company´s sale of its stake in the Kapuni field last year. Shell opened operations in New Zealand in 1911, but in 2015 announced a review of activities there as part of a streamlining of its global portfolio. The sale was "another step towards reshaping and simplifying our company... in order to become a world-class investment," Shell´s Maarten Wetselaar said in a statement.