LNG

Warrego Energy Ltd, the Australian oil and gas explorer with natural gas assets in the onshore Perth Basin, said its board's recommendation of a takeover by a subsidiary of Hancock Prospecting Ltd. was no longer unanimous following a revised proposal from Australia’s Strike Energy amid an intense Australian company bid battle.

Mitsui & Co., the Japanese conglomerate and LNG market participant in the shipping and project sectors, has completed the takeover of Australian natural gas operator AWE and has immediately agreed to acquire a gas plant in the state of Victoria in southeast Australia.

April 4 (LNGJ) - Mitsui & Co., the Japanese conglomerate and LNG market participant in the shipping and project sectors, is close to gaining majority control of Australian natural gas operator AWE and its Perth Basin joint venture in Western Australia. Mitsui said that as part of its US$460 million takeover bid for AWE it had now been accorded 48 percent of the shares. Once the conglomerate reaches 50.1 percent of the shares in the Australian Securities Exchange-listed company its takeover offer becomes unconditional. AWE’s assets include a 50 percent stake and operatorship of the promising Waitsia onshore natural gas project.

Feb 19 (LNGJ) - Beach Energy, the emerging Australian natural gas player and buyer of Origin Energy’s Lattice oil and gas spin-off, posted a 7 percent decline in first-half net profits for fiscal 2018 to A$95.7 million (US$74.7M) versus A$103.4 in the previous first half. One of Beach’s main assets is its joint venture equity stake in the onshore Waitsia natural gas project in Western Australia with AWE Ltd, a company expected to be taken over by Japan’s Mitsui & Co. Beach acquired the Lattice assets for US$1.25 billion from Origin, a stakeholder in the Australia Pacific LNG plant, and the move doubled Beach’s size and established it as a major supplier of gas to domestic markets.

Chinese company China Energy Reserve and Chemical Group (CERCG) said it would push ahead with its plans to transport Australian LNG from the West Coast to the East Coast even as its bid for local exploration and production company AWE was likely to be rejected in favour of a higher offer.

Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co. has entered the bidding battle for Australian natural gas exploration and production company AWE with an offer that trumps two other bids from China and Australia and raises the value of Australian natural gas where the domestic market is competing with LNG for the resource base.

Australia’s Mineral Resources Ltd said it entered into a binding agreement to acquire oil and gas company AWE for over US$400 million to trump a takeover bid by Chinese company China Energy Reserve and Chemical Group (CERCG), which had LNG plans for the target’s Western Australia natural gas assets.

Australian Energy company AWE, a stakeholder in the largest onshore natural gas discovery in Western Australia for 40 years, has become the subject of a takeover battle between a Chinese state-owned company and an Australian mining business, Mineral Resources, amid plans for gas to be shipped as LNG from western to eastern Australia.

Australian Energy company AWE, a substantial stakeholder in the largest onshore natural gas discovery in Western Australia for 40 years, was awaiting the next moves following a US$325 million takeover offer from a state-owned energy company in China.

Two Australian exploration and production companies said an independent review had increased by 78 percent the estimated reserves for the Waitsia natural gas field in the Perth Basin of Western Australia, the largest onshore discovery for 40 years and destined for the domestic market.