Beach Energy boss Brett Woods takes aim at Adnoc’s | Australian Markets
Beach Energy boss Brett Woods has questioned whether or not Adnoc’s $30 billion mega buyout of Santos shall be within the national curiosity, however signalled his company needs to become involved within the deal.
The feedback got here because the mid-tier petroleum business revealed a $44 million loss, following $674m of write downs disclosed final week.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and companions lobbed the takeover offer for Santos in June and have since been enterprise due diligence on Australia’s second-biggest oil and fuel business.
The deal — if Adnoc strikes forward — would then be assessed by the Foreign Investment Review Board and finish up on the desk of Treasurer Jim Chalmers for a closing call.
It would put Santos’ massive LNG export plants and a smattering of home fuel services underneath the control of a Middle Eastern government-backed company.
“These assets are in the national interest,” Mr Woods stated, pointing to Santos’ Cooper Basin fuel fields in South Australia the place Beach is a junior accomplice.
“They’re important assets to deliver gas to the east coast market.”
When pressed additional on the national curiosity risk, he stated it was “really hard for (him) to comment” till more info on the transaction’s construction emerges.
But he did signal he could be eager to have a seat at the desk when Adnoc and regulators thrash out the longer term of Santos’s home fuel portfolio.
That adopted latest media stories that Beach was eyeing off a slice of Santos’ native belongings because the Adnoc deal faces scrutiny.
Mr Woods stated he could be keen to help “getting the transaction away” though he had to this point had no engagement with the patrons.
“If an opportunity arises for a (deal) across the east coast and west coast, what is core to our company’s strategy, I’d certainly be looking at (it),” he stated.
Asked by analysts how he would fund a potential transaction, he stated the company had lots of room to tackle debt.
Beach’s gross sales income for the 2025 financial yr lifted 13 per cent and was simply shy of $2b. But writedowns nonetheless weighed on the company and it posted a $44m loss, thanks partly to decrease oil price projections and drilling updates within the Perth Basin.
First fuel is tipped at the under-construction Waitsia plant — a three way partnership with Mitsui & Co — within the Perth Basin within months.
Beach shares had lifted 4 per cent to $1.18 every at the time of writing. SGH is a main shareholder in Beach and in Seven West Media, which owns West Australian Newspapers Limited, writer of The West Australian.
More to return.
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