LNG

AGL Energy, the Australian power company whose plans for an LNG import terminal in the state of Victoria were thwarted by regulators and which fought off takeover interest from various quarters before having an environmental extremist take a big stake in the company, swung to a fiscal first-half net profit from a previous loss.

Origin Energy, the Australian upstream supplier to the Australia-Pacific LNG export plant in Queensland facing a A$18.4 billion (US$12.3 billion) buyout offer from a two-firm consortium led by Canada's Brookfield Asset Management, said the due diligence on the deal was largely completed.

Origin said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange that it was continuing its “active engagement” with Brookfield and consortium partner MidOcean Energy, an LNG company formed and managed by US-based energy investor EIG.

“Origin advises that the Consortium has substantially completed due diligence and active engagement continues on a non-exclusive basis in relation to the submission of a binding proposal,” said Origin.

The Sydney-based company noted that any binding proposal would be subject to a number of conditions, including approval by Australian regulators.

“At this stage, shareholders do not need to take any action and Origin will continue to keep shareholders updated in accordance with its continuous disclosure obligations,” said the company.

Origin’s business comprises Integrated Gas with its feed-gas sales to Australia-Pacific LNG and a utilities and domestic power markets unit, the Energy Markets division.

This is made up of retail and wholesale electricity sales and natural gas supplies to the states of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

Targeted

The bid for Origin from Brookfield comes after its offer in 2022 to buy Australia's leading utility, AGL Energy, was rejected.

The Origin buy-out proposal was made through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund, which is co-run by Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England.

Under the proposal to acquire Origin, Brookfield would take over the company’s Energy Markets business, while MidOcean Energy, in the form of EIG, would take control of Origin's Integrated Gas business, including its 27.5 percent stake in APLNG.

The APLNG plant stake that would go to EIG’s MidOcean under the Origin buy-out is a supplier to China and one of its shareholders is China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, known as Sinopec.

Origin is the main upstream operator for coal-seam gas supply to the facility while US major ConocoPhillips is the plant operator.

APLNG came on stream in 2016 and has two liquefaction Trains with total nameplate capacity of around 9 million tonnes per annum with about 7 MTPA going to China.

The plant sits alongside two other CSG-to-LNG facilities on Curtis Island, the Shell-run Queensland Curtis LNG plant and the Gladstone plant, operated by Santos.

AGL Energy of Australia said it signed two agreements in relation to its proposed liquefied natural gas import jetty planned for Crib Point in the state of Victoria, one of two regasification projects planned for the southeast of the country to underpin gas supplies.

Japanese companies Marubeni Corp. and Jera Co. Inc. have joined an Australian investment and energy group to reveal plans for a liquefied natural gas import facility near Sydney to make up the domestic natural gas shortfall on the East Coast.

Feb 27 (LNGJ) – Western Australia, the main LNG-producing state in the country, is boosting its domestic supplies. AWE Ltd, operator of a production licence in the Western Australian onshore Perth Basin, has agreed a non-binding accord with AGL Wholesale Gas for the first gas sale from stage two of the Waitsia Gas Project. The deal is for 15 percent of nominal daily production capacity. Total capacity will be the equivalent of 95 million cubic feet per day, or 10 percent of the Western Australian domestic gas needs for 10 years. “AGL is one of Australia’s leading integrated energy companies and we are pleased to be able to contribute to their entry into the Western Australia market with the first gas sale from Waitsia stage two,” said David Biggs, Chief Executive of AWE.