Hooray I found the article in the bin. By Ingrid Mansell, 30 June 2008, page 17 of the Australian Financial Review.
'The chief executive of Woodside Petroleum has likened the current rush for Queensland's gas reserves to the dotcom boom, but refuses to rule out a bid for Origin Energy's coal-bed gas assets.
Don Voelte, the boss of Australia's biggest stand-alone oil and gas company, said the market for coal seam methane was "extremely overheated" following the arrival of Britain's BG Group, Shell and Malaysia's Petronas on the scene.
"Do I get excited about other people racing ahead? No, because it always comes home to haunt," Mr Voelte told the Australian Financial Review. "I gotta tell you some of this stuff looks an awful lot like the tech boom and boy, when the bubble bursts it goes away."
BG Group chief executive Frank Chapman is in Australia trying to persuade Origin Energy shareholers to back his hostile $13.8 billion, $15.50-per-share takeover bid.
Origin, which rebuffed the bid, has responded by putting its coal seam gas assets up for auction in an effort to attract a higher price.
"It's very interesting to watch how people are valuing those assets," said Mr Voelte, a native Nebraskan, who joined Woodside in 2004.
"People are valuing that gas like it's the gas that we have in our portfolio off WA. It's completely different gas."
"Coal-bed methane gas is a lousy quality gas at liquefied form. You can't just put that up in Japan - they won't take it - so you have to blend it. There are a whole bunch of issues with it."
...
Mr Voelte also suggested some rival energy companies might be underestimating the challenges and difficulties of building an LNG plant in Australia, especially one supported by coal bed methane.
"There's a reason nobody has ever built an LNG plant off coal bed methane before. Believe me, there's a lot of coal bed methane produced around the world."
...
I thought certain might appreciate the Woodside CEO's input. However it is important to note in the very first paragraph he doesn't rule out Woodside making a bid for Origin, so maybe his comments are merely propaganda aimed at detering BG and others from stopping the mooted Woodside-Origin merger. Who knows?!
Mudguy.
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