Australia M&A - INPEX & TotalEnergies to acquire Cash-Maple from PTTEP
Earlier today,?INPEX and TotalEnergies announced that they have agreed to acquire PTTEP's 100% interest in the AC/RL7 permit that contains the undeveloped Cash-Maple gas field. INPEX will acquire 74% and TotalEnergies 26%. No deal value has been announced, with completion conditional on regulatory approvals.
AC/RL7 - Cash-Maple
The AC/RL7 permit covers an area of 418 km2 in the Timor Sea, the permit includes the Cash and Maple gas and condensate fields, discovered in 2002 and 1989 respectively. The fields are isolated located approximately 680 km west of Darwin and 700 km northeast of Broome, with the Ichthys offshore facilities located about 250 km southwest. PTTEP entered the permit in 2009 and have held 100% interest since 2011.
During the early-2010's, the Cash and Maple fields were planned to be developed through a new FLNG project, with resources of 3.5 Tcf reported. However, as oil prices (and LNG prices) softened, the economics of a standalone development failed to stack up. This transaction should now allow the fields to be developed through as backfill to the Ichthys development, with the timing and scale being dependent on the expected declines at Ichthys.
INPEX/TotalEnergies motivation
Both INPEX and TotalEnergies have indicated that their driver for the deal is for the future development of these fields to provide long-term supply to the Ichthys development. The 3.5 Tcf of resource would provide sufficient supply to operate Ichthys at full capacity (8.9 mtpa) for 7 to 8 years. It is unclear at this point when this supply will be required but securing long-term supplies to keep the plant operating at name-plate capacity is a sensible move.
领英推荐
PTTEP motivation
I have been aware of PTTEP's desire to divest this asset since 2019 and it represents an exit from Australia following their divestment of their Montara asset to Jadestone in 2018.
The move simplifies their portfolio and will provide capital to invest in their core assets, particularly their domestic gas assets.
My comments
This is a good deal all round. I wouldn't expect the deal to have a high valuation but PTTEP will be happy to divest and exit Australia and it gives INPEX and TotalEnergies a potential supply option for Ichthys, although they will also likely look at other options closer to the Ichthys facility.
If Cash-Maple does proceed to FID, then I would expect some of the minority partners at Ichthys to take a stake from INPEX (TotalEnergies stake is already aligned). These minority partners include CPC Corp, Tokyo Gas (will be MidOcean Energy once deal completes), Kansai Electric, Osaka Gas, JERA and Toho Gas.
The INPEX and TotalEnergies announcements both made reference to the potential for the geological storage of CO2 through the Bonaparte CCS Assessment joint venture, that is looking into this as an option to abate emissions from the Ichthys project which is relatively high in CO2 (average 8.6% in the?original development of the Brewster?Member and 16.8% in the?more recent development of the Plover?Formation). However, I am yet to see any information on the CO2 content of either the Cash or Maple fields.