Woodside Petroleum Ltd. has completed its $2.8 billion acquisition of Apache Corp.’s Australian LNG and oil assets. An allied $854 million deal for the company’s Canadian interests is expected to be closed this week.
The total $3.7 billion transaction was made public in December 2014. The total price is made up of $2.75 billion plus extra amounts to reimburse Apache for investment made since July 1, 2014, an adjustment then expected to be $1 billion.
Woodside will now emerge as a 13% partner in the Chevron-operated Wheatstone LNG project, which is nearly 60% completed and due to come on stream late next year.
The deal also provides Woodside with an immediate increase in production via Apache’s 65% stake in Julimar-Brunello fields that will supply gas to the Wheatstone project and a 65% stake in producing nearby Balnaves oil field on the North West Shelf.
The Canadian side of the deal comprises Apache’s 50% interest in the proposed Kitimat LNG project in British Columbia, also operated by Chevron, and includes Apache’s half-share in unconventional petroleum acreage in the Horn River and Liard basins.
Apache also is in negotiations for the sale of most of the remainder of its petroleum interests in Western Australia that include significant interests in the Varanus Island oil and gas hub and the Devil Creek gas processing hub along with associated oil fields, such as Van Gough, Coniston, and Pyrenees, and gas fields such as Halyard, Macedon, Stag, and Reindeer.
Apache, at this stage, still maintains a small joint venture in the onshore Canning basin with Perth-based Buru Energy Ltd. It also, later this year, will drill the Roc-1 wildcat to follow its success in the Phoenix South-1 oil find in the offshore Bedout sub-basin.
