Ask someone in the North Sea supply chain what Viaro Energy is‚ and they would probably tell you it's a young company that has grown fast through a string of acquisitions. Buying entire firms‚ taking equity positions in licenses already held by some of the smaller explorers‚ and mopping up mature fields sold off by some of the largest operators. Founded in 2020, Viaro Energy already has interests in over 60 fields across the UK Continental Shelf and Dutch North Sea. 

Structure and Ownership  

London-headquartered and privately owned‚ and run through main operating subsidiary RockRose Energy‚ Viaro Energy is part of Viaro Group‚ which also includes a commodities trading business‚ Viaro Investment. Francesco Mazzagatti‚ the founder of the group and chief executive officer of Viaro Energy‚ built the energy business within his group's corporate structure as its dedicated upstream vehicle‚ and it's the one that gets the headlines. Gas fields‚ acquisitions‚ etc. But the trading side came first historically‚ and the two still share a common thread: buy something undervalued‚ structure the deal carefully‚ move fast.  

What Viaro Energy Actually Produces  

What does Viaro Energy actually produce? Mostly gas. Viaro itself claims to be over 70% gas-weighted rather than oil‚ perceiving gas as a transition fuel while cleaner alternatives scale up in the background. Their UK continental shelf portfolio contains gas assets accounting for 9% of the UK's gas output on a gross basis‚ and around 3% on a net basis. Pretty good for a company with no prior operating history before September 2020.  

Non-Operated by Design

 
Viaro does not operate most of what it owns. It holds non-operated joint ventures: it owns a stake in the field‚ but someone else operates it‚ and Viaro shares in the income. It picks up mature‚ non-core assets that larger operators such as SSE don't want to run anymore‚ betting there are several years of life left in them. In rare cases, it takes operatorship: in 2023‚ for example‚ RockRose farmed into Hartshead Resources' Anning and Somerville gas field redevelopments‚ taking a 60% working interest, with operatorship agreed to being transferred to RockRose at a later date.

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Production Targets  

When Francesco Mazzagatti's Viaro Energy initially entered into a deal to acquire RockRose in 2020‚ the stated goal was to build the company into "a leading‚ mid-sized independent oil and gas producer", aiming for a long-term production target of 100‚000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). Current production runs up to 25,000 boepd on a sustained basis. ​​

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