Northern Oil & Gas in administration

KPMG has been appointed as administrator to two subsidiaries of West Perth-based Northern Oil & Gas Australia, with contractor GR Engineering Services going into a trading halt as result of the action.

Timor Sea Oil and Gas Australia Pty Ltd and Northern Oil and Gas Australia Pty Ltd, which are subsidiaries of the unlisted Northern Oil & Gas Holdings Ltd, were placed into administration today.

Northern Oil owns the Northern Endeavour vessel, which operated in the Timor Sea.

The vessel was ordered to halt operations on July 10 by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority, due to structural corrosion concerns.

It is currently moored and operated by Upstream Production Solutions, which is a subsidiary of GR Engineering.

Today, GR Engineering went into a trading halt pending an announcement regarding the status of the operations and its maintenenance services contract for the vessel.