02-08-2012, 06:58 AM
From Raymond James this AM:
InterOil Corp. (IOC/$67.32/Outperform) reportedly gets LNG project interest from Kogas, Japex, and Mitsui. According to a Dow Jones article published yesterday after market close, three large Asian companies - Kogas from Korea, along with Japex and Mitsui from Japan - are in talks to form a bidding consortium for joining InterOil's LNG project. The article cites unnamed sources. Some specific highlights from the article: (1) the three companies originally planned to bid separately but now want to collaborate "partly to avoid bidding up the price"; (2) bids were due in early December, but the deadline was extended "by a couple of months"; and (3) Kogas aims to be the LNG plant operator, while Mitsui and Japex want to buy a stake in the underlying resource. None of this is especially surprising; Mitsui, after all, is already an InterOil partner (for the condensate stripping plant), and the other two companies are known for their interest in Asia-Pacific energy projects. However, the specificity with which the companies are identified by a major newswire service is not something that we've encountered in the past. We would expect IOC shares to do well today as the market begins to price in a greater likelihood of the long-awaited resource selldown to one or more strategic partners
InterOil Corp. (IOC/$67.32/Outperform) reportedly gets LNG project interest from Kogas, Japex, and Mitsui. According to a Dow Jones article published yesterday after market close, three large Asian companies - Kogas from Korea, along with Japex and Mitsui from Japan - are in talks to form a bidding consortium for joining InterOil's LNG project. The article cites unnamed sources. Some specific highlights from the article: (1) the three companies originally planned to bid separately but now want to collaborate "partly to avoid bidding up the price"; (2) bids were due in early December, but the deadline was extended "by a couple of months"; and (3) Kogas aims to be the LNG plant operator, while Mitsui and Japex want to buy a stake in the underlying resource. None of this is especially surprising; Mitsui, after all, is already an InterOil partner (for the condensate stripping plant), and the other two companies are known for their interest in Asia-Pacific energy projects. However, the specificity with which the companies are identified by a major newswire service is not something that we've encountered in the past. We would expect IOC shares to do well today as the market begins to price in a greater likelihood of the long-awaited resource selldown to one or more strategic partners