Meet the energy tycoon accused of fraud who is buying up the North Sea

Donald Trump did not hold back. On his state visit to the UK, the American president was typically forthright. At the joint press conference at Chequers with Sir Keir Starmer, Trump described wind energy as an “expensive joke” and exhorted the British prime minister to exploit the “great asset” of North Sea oil and gas. Said Trump: “We had the worst inflation in the history of our country and we had an expression that I used a lot: drill, baby, drill.

“And as you know, we brought fuel way down. The price is way down. And we don’t do wind because wind is a disaster. It’s a very expensive joke, frankly, and we’ve got our energy prices down ... And you have a great asset here… it’s called the North Sea.”

Its ability to solve the UK’s energy problems, he said, was “phenomenal”.

Trump’s exhortation may not have pleased everyone but one person who agreed with his every word is Francesco Mazzagatti. He’s the Italian entrepreneur who soon, if all goes to plan, will speak for five per cent of Britain’s gas production. His UK company, Viaro Energy, is close to buying 11 North Sea gas fields and an onshore terminal from Shell and ExxonMobil for £400m.

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Mazzagatti, 39, is no fossil fuel zealot. Unlike Trump, he is a firm advocate of renewable energy, or some of it. “I’ve always seen oil and gas as part of the transition. It can’t be excluded.” He wants Viaro to be a major player, not just in oil and gas but in nuclear. “Fifteen, 16 years from now, that’s where I want to be. I believe in nuclear. Viaro will be my legacy.”

He began his career straight from leaving school in his native Calabria, in southern Italy. He helped his father in the family transport business before setting up on his own in logistics and distribution, ferrying fruit juices in north Africa and Europe. Then he started a chemicals and lubricants company focusing on the Middle East, which took him to oil and gas. One of his customers was the Nato Support and Procurement Agency, transporting the organisation’s fuel and food supplies.

Latterly, he has become something of a North Sea devotee. Mazzagatti first bought into the UK’s principal energy sector in 2020 when his start-up, Viaro, acquired RockRose, a London-listed group with fields in the southern North Sea straddling UK and Dutch waters. Soon afterwards, he added SEE’s portfolio of gas exploration and production assets, again in the south.

The North Sea’s potential, he says, is still enormous. He believes the south of the North Sea alone is sitting on 120 million barrels, which, if they could be extracted, would go a considerable way towards fulfilling the UK’s energy demands and massively improve our security, so we are not so reliant on foreign imports.

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His strategy is simple: buying southern North Sea fields the giants no longer want, ones that don’t offer them the levels of return on investment they require. “A super-major needs to be seeing 20 to 30 per cent; a smaller player like ours can operate on a return of 10 per cent. It makes more sense for them to put their capital somewhere else.”

Mazzagatti is embroiled in a legal action brought by his former company, alleging fraud and theft. Alliance Petrochemical Investment (API), a Singaporean trading firm he divested to Arshia Jahanpour, accuses him of using the proceeds to fund the RockRose acquisition. Mazzagatti describes the litigation as “vexatious”, as an attempt to extract a settlement from him, something he refuses to do. He says that thanks to API waging a campaign of “defamation, harassment and extortion” against him, he has suffered “trial by media”.

Fortunately, he insists, the case has not derailed the Shell/ExxonMobil deal. They have conducted their own due diligence and “they know me, know my integrity and know the way we operate”. He declares himself “really grateful to them and all the people” who have stood by him.

He cites coming second in a recent bidding war with 13 other bidders for a downstream refinery in Europe. “The seller was a super-major and there were 14 bidders in total and we got down to the last two. Of all of them, we were the smallest. We didn’t make it, but what pleased me was that despite the allegations thrown at us, a super-major still believed in us.”

He is confident of vindication. “We will fight it, it will pass,” he says, smiling. “You know, in Italy we have a saying: ‘Il cane abbaia, la carovana passa,’ which means ‘the dogs bark but the caravan goes on’”.

Unfortunately for him, the journey in the North Sea is slow. The Shell/ExxonMobil deal requires the approval of the UK’s North Sea Transition Authority, and it is examining each rig included in the package one by one, a process that has taken many months. He signed to buy from Shell/ExxonMobil in July 2024 and hopes to complete by the end of the year.

The regulator will not be rushed; that is the system. It’s frustrating for Britain, too, since Mazzagatti says he is poised to invest in the rigs, to bring them to top condition and boost production. They employ almost 400 people, and he’s got an additional 50-plus ready to join. “I’ve been to them, met the workers, and we’ve more jobs waiting to come on board. Everyone wants to get on, they're excited, there is so much to be done.”

For now, he and they are waiting for the North Sea authorities to give the green light – and they will not be hurried, whatever Trump may say. Investment in UK energy security continues to be held up.