M&A in Australasia - 2022

Rob Chambers

30 Dec 2022 — 3 min read

2022 – A year of two halves

(Originally published on December 30, 2022)

Oil and Gas related M&A transaction value decreased for both asset and corporate related transactions in 2022 vs 2021. However, there was plenty of activity, particularly in the second half of the year, with major transactions around the gas-to-LNG projects.

H1 – Dominated by deal completion

The first half of the year was dominated by the completion of deals that were announced in 2021. With the major deals being:

GIP completing the acquisition of a 49% interest in Pluto Train 2 from Woodside Energy.
ConocoPhillips completing the acquisition of an additional 10% in APLNG from Origin after taking up their pre-emption rights following a bid by EIG.
POSCO International and Hancock Energy completing their corporate acquisition of Senex Energy.
JERA completing the acquisition of a 12.5% stake in Barossa from Santos after FID was taken.
The completion of the Woodside Energy / BHP Petroleum merger.

2022 - Deals announced in 2021 but completed in 2022

H2 – Gas-to-LNG is the flavour of the day.

The second half of the year seems to be when the M&A action really heats up, with nearly $16 billion of deals announced. The deals were dominated by transactions involving producing gas-to-LNG projects, with private equity showing a real appetite for this story.

Jadestone Energy acquiring BP’s 16.667% stake in the CWLH asset. This is a mid-to-late life oil project that was associated with the NWS LNG project. It involves four oil fields tied-back to a leased FPSO. The acquisition aligns well with Jadestone’s existing oil assets in Australia, with the only downside being the requirement to pay $41 million into a decommissioning trust fund for the asset.
Kumul Petroleum acquiring an additional 5% interest in PNG LNG from Santos. Following the merger with Oil Search, Santos become the largest partner in the PNG LNG project with a 42.5% stake. Selling-down some of this interest was expected and a further sell-would not be unexpected.
EIG (through MidOcean Energy) acquiring Tokyo Gas’ stake in four major integrated gas-to-LNG projects. EIG clearly believe in the gas-to-LNG story in Australia and finally entered (after being pre-empted by ConocoPhillips at APLNG in 2021) when they announced the acquisition of Tokyo Gas’ stake in four gas-to-LNG projects, namely Pluto + Pluto LNG T1 (5%), Gorgon LNG (1%), QC LNG (1.25%), and Ichthys (1.575%). The only LNG asset in the Tokyo Gas portfolio not included is their 3.07% interest in the Bayu-Undan/Darwin LNG project.
Brookfield Asset Management and EIG (through MidOcean Energy) takeover of Origin Energy. After losing out to ConocoPhillips for a 10% stake in APLNG in 2021, EIG have come back to the table, together with Brookfield Asset Management to acquire Origin Energy. If completed, then EIG would take on Origin’s gas and LNG business, whilst Brookfield would take on their retail business.

New Zealand – All quiet on the Eastern Front

There was little significant M&A activity in New Zealand. However, we did see Jadestone Energy and OMV eventually walk away from the deal for Jadestone to acquire OMV’s stake in the Maari asset. This deal was announced three years prior, but had been held up by regulatory issues owing to fears of a repeat of the issues from Tamarind Resources acquiring the Tui field and their subsequent insolvency.