another shot across santos' bow, page-14

goodaye,
a couple of things are interesting wrt this ESG announcement.
- it has already been noted that this MOU is only to study the feasibility of an LNG plant for Ncastle (plus infrastructure etc)
- so they do not have offtake customers yet
- they do not have equity partners yet.

BUT - the beauty of Hitachi and Toyo as partners in the MOU, is that these two partners will facilitate the acquisition of BOTH offtake customers and equity participation.

Without a doubt, Japanese buyers will feel a hell of a lot more comfortable contracting into the future to buy LNG, from a project which has been given the thumbs-up by these two firms.
Equally Japanese funding parties, being banks, project financiers and equity players will feel comfortable knowing that these two heavyweights believe that the Ncastle project is viable.

I think Japan is the biggest LNG buyer in the world?

The Japanese (and other Asian customers) look for security of supply. That Japanese tie-up will be invaluable.

So look out for another MOU, with a Japanese foundation customer and equity partner - probably conditional upon satisfactory feasibilty etc etc.

+++++++
The other thing to remember about Santos, is the Pure Energy/BG/ Arrow situation.
Arrow had a big s/h in Pure, and was the "natural" acquirer of Pure.
But BG came over the top, coming from zero s/h, and took out Pure.
So - just because Santos has 20% of ESG and what? 35% of ESG permits, still does not stop another predator from successfully having a go at ESG.
Particularly if they think Santos is all tie-up with funding and planning their own LNG project.

cheers