The Australian company seeking to develop a large oil discovery on Alaska\u2019s North Slope may be purchased by a consortium based in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>
Santos Ltd.\u00a0announced\u00a0earlier this month that\u00a0XRG PJSC, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., has made a buyout offer. Terms are still being negotiated.<\/p>
The value of the proposed deal is $36 billion, including Santos\u2019 debt.<\/p>
Santos is one of Australia\u2019s oldest and biggest oil and gas companies. It has operations in Australia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Timor-Leste \u2013 and\u00a0in Alaska, where it owns 51% of the Pikka prospect on the western North Slope and is the project\u2019s operator. Repsol, based in Spain, owns 49%.<\/p>
Pikka, if developed, would produce up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, according to Santos. The field holds about 400 million barrels of oil, and Santos in 2022 issued its\u00a0formal approval\u00a0to proceed to project development. The capital cost was estimated at $2.6 billion at the time.<\/p>
Pikka\u00a0is located near the ConocoPhillips-operated projects within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Pikka and ConocoPhillips\u2019 huge Willow project, which is in development, are both connected to the\u00a0Nanushuk\u00a0geologic formation, a layer of oil-bearing rock underlying areas of the central and western North Slope.<\/p>
Aside from its share of Pikka, Santos has part ownership of another oil property on the North Slope. It owns a 25% share of the Sockeye prospect on the eastern North Slope, where operator and 50% owner APA Corp. made a\u00a0discovery\u00a0that was announced in March.<\/p>
If the acquisition by XRG PJSC goes through, the impacts to the Alaska projects are yet to be determined.<\/p>
State officials have been following the process.<\/p>
John Boyle, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, by email: \u201cThe Department of Natural Resources sees new entrants\/investors into Alaska\u2019s oil and gas sector as a positive development.\u201d<\/p>
There were\u00a0reports\u00a0last year about efforts by Santos and Repsol to sell some shares of their Alaska holdings.<\/p>
In Australia, the idea of Santos being acquired by an Abu Dhabi company has created some\u00a0controversy. Government and labor union officials there have raised concerns about the takeover, with one regional government proposing some\u00a0Conditions on the transaction.<\/p>
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Australian company seeking to develop a large oil discovery on Alaska\u2019s North Slope may be purchased by a consortium based in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n
Santos Ltd. announced earlier this month that XRG PJSC, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., has made a buyout offer. Terms are still being negotiated.<\/p>\n
The value of the proposed deal is $36 billion, including Santos\u2019 debt.<\/p>\n
Santos is one of Australia\u2019s oldest and biggest oil and gas companies. It has operations in Australia, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Timor-Leste \u2013 and in Alaska, where it owns 51% of the Pikka prospect on the western North Slope and is the project\u2019s operator. Repsol, based in Spain, owns 49%.<\/p>\n
Pikka, if developed, would produce up to 80,000 barrels of oil a day, according to Santos. The field holds about 400 million barrels of oil, and Santos in 2022 issued its formal approval to proceed to project development. The capital cost was estimated at $2.6 billion at the time.<\/p>\n
Pikka is located near the ConocoPhillips-operated projects within the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. Pikka and ConocoPhillips\u2019 huge Willow project, which is in development, are both connected to the Nanushuk geologic formation, a layer of oil-bearing rock underlying areas of the central and western North Slope.<\/p>\n
Aside from its share of Pikka, Santos has part ownership of another oil property on the North Slope. It owns a 25% share of the Sockeye prospect on the eastern North Slope, where operator and 50% owner APA Corp. made a discovery that was announced in March.<\/p>\n
If the acquisition by XRG PJSC goes through, the impacts to the Alaska projects are yet to be determined.<\/p>\n
State officials have been following the process.<\/p>\n
John Boyle, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, by email: \u201cThe Department of Natural Resources sees new entrants\/investors into Alaska\u2019s oil and gas sector as a positive development.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were reports last year about efforts by Santos and Repsol to sell some shares of their Alaska holdings.<\/p>\n
In Australia, the idea of Santos being acquired by an Abu Dhabi company has created some controversy. Government and labor union officials there have raised concerns about the takeover, with one regional government proposing some conditions on the transaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1662,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1658\/revisions\/1662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test7.samplewebsitelink.com\/jamesryan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}