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Arrow Offers an 81% Premium for Pure Energy Resources

Bloomberg

 

 

Arrow Offers an 81% Premium for Pure Energy Resources (Update3) 

By Jason Scott

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) — Arrow Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s partner in coal-seam gas in northeast Australia, offered to buy Pure Energy Resources Ltd. for A$673 million ($460 million) in cash and shares, an 81 percent premium to its stock price.

Arrow will pay A$2.70 cash and 1.21 shares for each Pure stock, the companies said today in a joint statement to the Australian stock exchange. Shares in Pure, a coal-seam exploration company in Queensland, surged as much as 65 percent in Sydney trading while Arrow fell.

Brisbane-based Arrow said it already has a 19.9 percent stake in Pure on a fully diluted basis. Shell this year acquired a 14.9 percent interest in Pure and a 30 percent stake in Arrow’s coal-seam gas acreage in Queensland. BG Group Plc and Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd. have invested in coal-seam gas-to-LNG ventures in Australia this year.

“A combination of Arrow and Pure will drive further upside from Pure’s acreage, and provide a commercialization path for Pure’s reserves as a result of Arrow’s downstream exposure through both Arrow’s existing domestic power generation projects and proposed LNG export projects,” Arrow Managing Director Nick Daviessaid in the statement.

The deal is unanimously supported Pure’s board. The 81 percent premium is based on the company’s Dec. 19 closing share price of A$2.98, according to today’s statement.

Arrow’s shares closed 11 percent lower to A$1.95 in Sydney trading while Puregained 50 percent to A$4.47.

BG, AGL

The A$269 million cash component of the offer will be funded by cash reserves and funds from Arrow’s Nov. 21 sale of 30 percent of its coal-seam gas licenses for as much as $612 million, it said. Arrow holds 80,000 square kilometers of coal-seam gas reserves in Queensland state.

BG Group, the third-biggest U.K. oil and gas producer, said Dec. 5 it would compulsorily acquire shares in the rest of Queensland Gas Co. as it seeks to ensure the development of a gas export project in Australia.

BG in October agreed to pay A$5.2 billion for Queensland Gas shares it didn’t own to take over a liquefied natural gas project. The bid followed BG’s failed A$13.5 billion takeover offer for Origin Energy Ltd., Australia’s biggest producer of gas from coal seams.

On Dec. 17, AGL Energy Ltd., Australia’s biggest electricity and gas retailer, agreed to pay A$370 million for a coal-seam gas exploration venture in New South Wales state to add reserves of the fuel.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Perth at[email protected]

Last Updated: December 22, 2008 00:35 EST

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