Partners Group to acquire Norwegian midstream infrastructure company CapeOmega

Partners Group, the global private markets investment manager, has agreed to acquire 100% of the equity in CapeOmega, a leading offshore infrastructure platform in Norway. The Company is being acquired from private equity investor HitecVision in a transaction that values CapeOmega at around EUR 1.2 billion (US$ 1.35 billion).

CapeOmega provides essential infrastructure for transporting natural gas produced on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The Company holds significant stakes in some of Norway's key midstream infrastructure: Gassled, the world's largest offshore gas transmission system; Nyhamna, one of three key gas processing plants in Norway; and Polarled, a 480km pipeline that runs from the Aasta Hansteen field to Nyhamna. CapeOmega's midstream investments benefit from high barriers to entry with no competing infrastructure and no pipe-to-pipe competition.

The NCS, which supplies around 27% of Europe's gas demand, has the largest gas reserves and resources in the North Sea, with only one-third of the resources in production. Partners Group will work closely with CapeOmega's management team, led by CEO Gisle Eriksen, to further expand in offshore infrastructure and related assets, with a focus on greenfield developments and brownfield acquisitions.

Partners Group already owns a sizeable portfolio of midstream infrastructure assets on behalf of its clients. The firm's most recent transactions in this sub-sector include its 2018 investment in Oklahoma, US-based Superior Pipeline Company, a full-service midstream energy company; and its 2016 investment in the construction of Arcanum Infrastructure (previously known as Raven), an ethylene to butene-1 processing facility located in the US state of Texas.