Macquarie Agrees to Acquire Stsake in Oil-and-Gas Field Operated by Bid Target -- Update
20 December 2016 - 6:09PM
Dow Jones News
By Robb M. Stewart
MELBOURNE, Australia--Macquarie Group Ltd. (MQG.AU) has agreed
to buy a 50% stake in an oil-and-gas field in central Australia,
positioning it as a partner in the operation to Central Petroleum
Ltd. (CTP.AU), which has spurned its takeover approach.
Santos Ltd. (STO.AU) said Tuesday it had agreed to sell its half
of the Mereenie field, including a pipeline to the town of Alice
Springs, to a subsidiary of Macquarie. It said further details of
the deal, which is part of its strategy to simplify its portfolio
and sell noncore assets, would be released along with its quarterly
results in January.
A spokeswoman for Macquarie declined to comment on the Mereenie
field or Central Petroleum.
Central Petroleum took over as operator of the producing
Mereenie field in 2015 after buying a 50% interest in the assets
from Santos for 45 million Australian dollars (US$32.6 million) in
cash. That deal positioned it as operator of three gas fields in
the Amadeus Basin in Northern Territory.
In mid-November, Central Petroleum said it had received a
nonbinding offer from Macquarie at 17.5 Australian cents a share,
valuing it at about A$76 million. Despite rejecting the offer as
not in the best interest of shareholders, its board agreed to allow
Macquarie due diligence access so it might reconsider its
proposal.
Macquarie Bank is a shareholder of Central Petroleum, holding a
2.3% stake at Sept. 15, and its principal financier, Central
Petroleum said.
The Mereenie field was discovered in 1963 and began production
in 1984, selling oil to South Australia state and gas to Northern
Territory.
In 2015, Macquarie Capital teamed with Brookfield Asset
Management Inc. (BAM) for the US$2.1 billion acquisition of Apache
Energy Ltd.'s oil-and-gas assets in Western Australia, which formed
the foundations for a company renamed Quadrant Energy.
Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 20, 2016 01:54 ET (06:54 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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