Centrica splashes out again in the North Sea

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The stakes represent about 22 million barrels, boosting Centrica's total hydrocarbon reserves by about 5%, and will yield the company 9,300 barrels a day this year. The fields are in three areas of the North Sea, known as Greater Armada, the Mungo and Monan cluster and the Alba field.

Centrica, whose British Gas residential arm is the UK's largest energy supplier with about 16 million customers, is keen to step up the so-called upstream part of its business, which explores for and extracts hydrocarbons. With energy demand set to soar in the coming years, analysts forecast that oil and gas prices will remain high for some time to come.

Today's acquisition comes after Centrica paid $223 million to double its stake to 34.3% in the Statfjord field, which straddles the UK and Norwegian North Sea, and paid Statoil £1 billion for stakes in eight oil and gas developments on the Norwegian continental shelf. Centrica is expected to come under fire tomorrow when it announces an expected 4% rise in group operating profit to about £2.5 billion for 2011, in the face of growing fuel poverty and high utility bills.