LNG

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.

Dec 9 (LNGJ) - AWE Ltd., the Sydney-based Australian energy company, said its Waitsia natural gas project in the Perth onshore basin of Western Australia was making strong progress towards its stage two development. The project could free up more feed-gas for LNG production and exports in the state. The Waitsia joint venture partners, AWE and Origin Energy, have approved the 2017 development budget, including drilling the final two appraisal wells from April to June 2017. AWE added that it had commenced a tender process and bids had been received for Waitsia stage two, which could supply 10 percent of WA's domestic gas demand for 10 years.