ConocoPhillips to sell interests in Australia-West to Santos

ConocoPhillips is to sell the subsidiaries that hold its Australia-West assets and operations to Santos for $1.39bn. In addition, the company will also receive a payment of $75mn upon final investment decision (FID) of the Barossa development project.

The subsidiaries hold ConocoPhillip’s 7.5% interest in the Barossa project and Caldita field, 56.9% stake in the Darwin LNG facility and Bayu-Undan field, 40% interest in the Poseidon field, and a 50 % stake in the Athena field. ConocoPhillips will retain its 37.5% interest in the Australia Pacific LNG project and operatorship of that project’s LNG facility.

Commenting on the agreement, Matt Fox, Executive Vice President and CEO, noted that: ‘While we believe the Darwin LNG backfill project remains among the lower cost of supply options for new global LNG supply, this transaction allows us to allocate capital to other projects that we believe will generate the highest long-term value to ConocoPhillips.’

Production associated with the assets being sold was approximately 50,000 boe/d for 1H2019 and proved reserves were approximately 39mn boe at year-end 2018. The sale is expected to be completed in 1Q2020.

Darwin LNG
Photo: ConocoPhillips