The oil world was abuzz at the end of June 1996 when KPC first an announced that it was putting its North Sea assets; represented by its subsidiary KP North Sea Holdings, up for sale.

Investors were soon clamouring to KPC's London Merchant Bankers, Robert Fleeting and Company, for a once in decade, opportunity to add a share of some of the UK North Sea's most coveted operations to their portfolios.
By mid-December of the same year, the deal was done. Norway's Saga beat two dozen other blue-chip bidders in a $1.23 billion deal which saw the publicly listed independent Scandinavian major assume KPNSH's external development financing, and pay KPC the remainder, or about 60 per cent of the overall amount.
Talking about the sale which was dubbed the `deal of the decade' Abdulatif Al Tourah, former managing director, for corporate planning and former KOC chairman, said: "The disposal was implemented as part of KPC's overall strategy.
"In 1993, KPC undertook a strategic study to identify its core and non-core business areas, to enable it to focus more closely on activities where it has the best comparative advantage, and potential for synergy.
"In the upstream area this means domestic production in Kuwait," Al Tourah said.
"The North Sea assets, although they were then self-supporting from a cash point of view, were not considered a core business.
"They did not provide feedstock for our refineries, nor did they contribute to our other downstream activities.
"Although good investments in their own right they no longer met our criteria for a strategic core business.
"At that time, the direction was set. The only question was when we were going to dispose of them."
After a decision of selling the assets was taken, KPNSH continued to go from strength to strength.
It had twin exploration successes in the Durward and Dauntless fields, a very success successful result in licensing applications, and UK Government approval for the Britannia development.
Faisal Al Kazmawi, former KPNSH chairman, said that at the time of disposal, "We were producing around 63,000 bpd, with proven and probable reserves of over 180 million barrels.
"The operations were getting ever more efficient, we had excellent relationships with the operators and great exploration prospects," Al Kazmawi said.
"Overall costs had been reduced to $3.11 per beo, which is excellent by North Sea standards.
"Thistle costs had been cut by more than half in the past five years.
"We were using all the modern techniques such as extended reach horizontal drilling, satellite field development floating point storage and off take (FPSO) systems, water and gas injection, and the very best reservoir management techniques," Al Kazmawi said.
“Actually the sale of our North Sea assets was like a cherished son leaving home we brought him up and saw him turn into a man but now it was time for him to go," he added.
The IPO offering of Santa Fe shares in 1993 was the focus of worldwide interest.
In 1998, KPC had undertaken a review of its future strategy and decided to divest itself of non-core business.
In early 1996, KPC's board dicussed selling some of its holdings in SFIC and in the summer of 1996, the Supreme Petroleum Council approved this decision.