Waldorf offered a base cash consideration of USD 305 million, subject to customary purchase price adjustments and based on an economic effective date of Jan. 1, 2021, MOL said.

The agreement also contains an earn-out scheme mainly dependent on oil prices during 2022-2025, it added.

MOL noted that Waldorf would retain all future field abandonment liabilities such that on completion, MOL will derecognize provisions of around USD 350 mln.

MOL said that its average lifting cost would improve following completion of the transaction, as the production costs of the U.K. assets exceed the average lifting costs of the rest of its exploration and production portfolio.

The transaction is expected to be closed in the second half of 2022.

Production of MOL's U.K. assets peaked above 18,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2019 and has been falling for the past two years, MOL said. It added that production in Q4 2021 was "marginally above" 12,000 boepd.