The UK's Oil and Gas Authority has cleared Maersk Oil North Sea to assign its interest in license P218 to new independent RockRose Energy. The license contains the Scott (Maersk 5.16%) and Telford (Maersk 2.36%) fields. Scott and Telford are operated by Nexen through the Scott platform, which came onstream in 1993, about 188km northeast of Aberdeen in about 142m water depth. RockRose was listed on the junior stock market in January this year. Andrew Austin, its company's executive chairman, was head of UK shale gas firm IGas, which sold out to Ineos last year. Austin said in August the RockRose was working hard to acquire opportunities and that the firm had looked at more than 35 targets. "We have submitted bids for a number of assets," he said at the time. "The market for assets continues to be illiquid. Many assets are offered for sale but there is often a lack of realism when it comes to value and few transactions are actually closing.