India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp announced today that it has agreed to buy 10 percent in a gas field offshore Mozambique called Rovuma Block 1 from Anadarko for $2.64 billion (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/26/anadarko-ongc-mozambique-idUSL2N0GQ0M120130826). ; This is at least an 18% premium (depending on the value of Cove's other exploration assets) to the price at which Cove’s 8.5% stake in the Block was transacted to PTT last year following a bidding war with Shell. It’s a great time for LNG M&A, especially in East Africa and PNG. Here’s a Radio New Zealand article from last night titled “PNG’s gas reserves continue to receive global attention” (http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=78567 ) in which a UBS analyst discusses how significant Exxon’s interest in InterOil’s resources is:
“An oil and gas sector analyst says major players look set to continue turning their attention towards Papua New Guinea’s gas reserves.
The comment comes as Australian mining magnate Clive Palmer announced this week that he has discovered one of the world’s largest gas fields in PNG.
Palmer Petroleum has found the offshore field in the Gulf of Papua which Mr Palmer says could be worth more than 35 billion US dollars.
This comes as ExxonMobil’s major LNG project in PNG nears completion, and has signalled interest in acquiring some of Interoil’s gas finds in the country.
UBS’s Nik Burns says there’s a lot of gas in PNG and much of it is yet to be developed.
“So the future looks pretty bright. I guess the fact that Exxon is very keen to buy into this field - they’re a global player and LNG is a global product, and we’ve seen a huge growth in LNG supply options out of the US, Western Canada and East Africa over the last few years - but here’s Exxon making a statement saying they’re keen to buy into more PNG gas.”
Nik Burns.”
