Doubt it. GLNG is the best takeover protection STO has, Cooper Basin's rehab liabilities would run in a close second and I'm sure they'd also prefer to do without the political hot potato that is Narrabri.
WPL has already had a bad experience with its foray into onshore O&G and I imagine they will want to stay well away from it in future. STO has some individually attractive assets in WA that WPL would surely be interested in at the right price but not the whole package. But STO will want to hold onto those, and there will be plenty of other offshore assets in WA and overseas held by 'motivated sellers' like BHP, Chevron or Shell that will probably win out on price.
Every time there's a big oil price crash, it takes a year or so but eventually there's a big wave of M&A and it wouldn't surprise me to see WPL make more acquisitions. Chevron's NWS stake is prime candidate, in fact I can't really see anybody else who'd be interested in that. A few other opportunities in WA. Bass Strait is less likely as it's riskier (both geologically and politically), onshore I think we can rule out completely.
WPL Price at posting:
$18.96 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
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